#the original tagline was: and the universe said you are not alone; right?

[septictech]

love is in their hands death is on their minds

reblogs are super appreciated <3

Netflix Life Series -> Third Life Last Life

now available as prints here

[lifeofthegrind]

this is like a month old but i thought i would post my final for my social sciences class bc i was rly proud of it! the full cover letter is under the read more but it’s really long so to summarize: it’s about how Mad Men used advertising as a shorthand for societal ideals of the family, and how Don Draper is consumed by those ideals over the course of the show

The original concept for this project was a triptych collage. I wanted a visual element because the ads on this show are so visual, and because I thought that it was the quickest way to connect three distinct moments together. There are three general columns, each with pictures from a different episode of Mad Men. First, from S1:E13: “The Wheel”, then S6E12: “In Care Of”, and finally S7E14: “Person to Person”. I wanted to pull out these three episodes as particularly memorable moments when the advertisement shown on the show is tied directly to the personal life of the main character, Don Draper. Then, within each column, there are three general rows. The top row shows three separate ads that are featured in the respective episodes. I highlighted the brand names in gold and obscured any faces shown in these pictures to highlight the power these brands have over the people creating or consuming them. Then, the second row is trying to highlight the general social fantasy that each ad is trying to sell. Finally, the bottom row shows the dissonance between that fantasy and Don’s actual reality. From left to right, there is Don sitting alone in his house, Don explaining how this product was “the only sweet thing in [his] life” because he had no paternal affection, and Don admitting that the façade he projects is not actually his true self. There are several quotes from Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex and from Karl Marx’s Capital that informed my thinking written in the blank spaces.

Marx said that “as soon as [an object] emerges as a commodity, it changes into a thing which transcends sensuousness” (Marx 163). Its monetary value was not tied to its physical form anymore, but represents an abstract buying power in the economy. He posited that this value’s power came from the labor expended by the producers of the product. In this project, I am trying to show that commodities and brands also gain an outsized importance by adopting societal fantasies and becoming myths. These myths act as translators for societal ideals to our own lives. Just like how Greek heroes taught the Greeks lessons about how they should and should not act, the American myth—advertisements—translate our social ideals to the people and help them integrate the general fantasy into their reality.

Viewing advertisements through this lens makes Mad Men’s general structure of showing how Don Draper and co. solves their personal problems by creating ads very transparent. Their ads are powerful because of this connection to their personal lives, because the connection to social reality is what makes advertising effective. Brands like Coca-Cola and Hershey’s are not synonymous with the perfect American life by chance. By focusing on the creators of ads rather than consumers, it is clear how their symbolism in the American consciousness was “elaborated like language, by the human reality” (Beauvoir 57). The meaning of these brands is created by someone’s reality, not an inherent fact of the universe. This is made explicit in Mad Men by focusing on the creators of these ads. Beauvoir said that “any myth implies a Subject who projects its hopes and fears” into the creation of the myth (Beauvoir 162). The creators of these ads have to buy into the American fantasy just as much as the consumer for an ad to be truly effective. Both creator and consumer are using these ads to bridge the gap between their own reality and the ideal they are told to emulate. Don Draper lives every day articulating these myths, and struggles with how his own reality consistently diverges from his ideal. Thus, he copes by utilizing pouring elements from his own life into his ads, and thus is able to live in the delusion that they are one and the same.

This coping mechanism is first shown explicitly in the left-most column, taken from S1E13: “The Wheel”. Don is literally projecting images of his family to sell this product. By using his family as the quintessential American family in this myth, he is able to trick himself that they are this way in reality. However, this is not a real solution to any of his problems. This is a film projector, not a time machine. The final image of the episode shows Don’s reality: that he is alone, estranged from his family, unable to connect. In mythologizing his own life, he does not solve any problems, but rather uses them as one of his “countless ruses rather than confront real-life obstacles that he fears may be insurmountable” (Beauvoir 53). It is important to note that Don, in his role as both creator and consumer of these ads, is not simply responding to the power that this product has over him. He is imbuing it with power as well. The Kodak carousel is a film projector, not a “time machine”, not a way to reconnect with family. But by giving the product such an outsized importance in his own life, Don has given it power, while simultaneously removing some of his own.

In the second set of images, from S6E12: “In Care Of”, I wanted to show how Don is not merely projecting images of his life onto these fantasies, but actively pouring real information into them, as a sort of offering. Don has shared his real past and identity with almost no one, and yet tells the Hershey’s executives a deeply personal memory, almost compulsively. He is not creating a myth for his reality, but describing his reality through myths that already existed. “Hershey’s is the currency of affection” is not an arbitrary slogan, but a reflection of Don’s own need for affection from his nonexistent mother. Even when he was a child, he already had the association of Hershey’s with the ideal family that he never had. This societal ideal is already attached to the brand and the product, which is why Don believes that Hershey’s has no need to advertise at all, since there is no need to tie the product further into fantasies. Just like in the Kodak pitch, Don is using his real life to define this ad. However, the bottom picture shows Don breaking down and the executives being unimpressed. In this case, the gap between his reality and social ideals is too great to be bridged by an ad, and so the ad is unsuccessful.

The final set of images, from S7E14: “Person to Person”, shows Don as he is finally separated from his life completely. The reason why he articulates his life through ads, and the reason why he runs to California, the representation of counter-culture, is because he is compelled to “search for himself in things, which is a way to flee from himself” (Beauvoir 57). Don makes sense of his reality by alienating himself from it. In the final scenes of the series, he is completely alone, however, listening to someone extoll the promise of “a new day, new ideas, a new you.” Again, the self is equated to a collection of ideas that can just change, rather than a continuous experience grounded in reality. The iconic 1971 Coke commercial then plays, in full. Regardless of whether Don the character created this ad, the tagline “It’s the Real Thing” combined with the counter-culture aesthetic of the ad clearly represents the new ideal that Don is striving for. To the viewer, this final image shows us that this seeming enlightenment is nothing more than a mirage. While Don continues to filter his life through myths, and to “prefer a foreign image to a spontaneous movement of one’s own existence, ... to play at being” (Beauvoir 60). He is not able to create a new self, because his current self is nothing more than a collection of “new ideas”. Don believes that he is able to create a new self by creating his environment or aesthetic because he has continually tied his life to images, rather than accepting his reality for what it is.

Of course, the ultimate commentary Mad Men offers is on the viewer. One has to ask why audiences continued to flock to a show that focused entirely on one man’s quest to escape reality into some mid-century fantasy of American life. The 1950s and 60s hold an incredible grip on the American imagination, as some bygone era when the United States was unquestionably on top. Mad Men seems to offer a refutation of that image, in even showing the fracturing to the American family and myriad of other social problems faced during that time. However, it may be “not the opposite” of that fantasy, “but rather [its] most recent and noble manifestation” (Nietzsche 112). Mad Men, showing how its characters fail to live up to these fantasies, actually reinforces them by constantly showing them as desirable, if unattainable. Contemporary America has projected its hopes and fears onto Mad Men in the same way its characters project onto their ads. We face a similar period of political and social upheaval. The information revolution of the television finds its counterpart in the internet, where advertising is absolutely unavoidable. Don Draper is not the protagonist of a nostalgia-fueled recap of America’s greatest hits, but a cautionary tale in what happens when one ignores reality in favor of adherence to social fantasies.

[aion-rsa]

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Finale Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/3gYLntQ

This Star Trek: Discovery review contains major spoilers for the end of Season 3.

What a ride! The third season of Star Trek: Discovery was easily its most consistent and, dare I say, best yet? From the get-go, the series’ decision to vault its characters into the far future for its third outing proved itself a smart one, as the crew of the Discovery set about exploring this strange, new reality. The hour-long finale was a solid ending for the season, answering some questions we’ve had since the season premiere. In that way, “That Hope is You, Part 2” really was the perfect bookend to the premiere that started this far-future arc. That being said, the episode also set up some fascinating plot and character arcs for Season 4. Let’s break down all that happened in the Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 finale, and what it means for the bright future of this show.

We Finally Know What Caused The Burn

The big reveal in the Season 3 finale is the confirmation that it was a scared Su’Kal who caused The Burn when he was a small child. With Saru’s support and encouragement, Su’Kal faced the memory of the event: the death of his mother, when he was small. With her death, Su’Kal was all alone on the KSF Khi’eth, on a dilithium planet in an isolated nebula. His mother made Su’Kal promise not to turn off the holo until the Federation came. She couldn’t know that the Federation wouldn’t come for another 125 years.

Su’Kal is a polyploid, aka someone whose genetics were altered based on the environment around him. Because Su’Kal was born on a planet filled with dilithium, it gave him a unique connection to the element. The sonic scream he emitted upon losing his mother sent a shockwave through subspace that caused the Burn. Now that he is no longer in the nebula, it is unlikely a similar event will happen again. “I’d like to help repair what is broken, if I can,” Su’Kal tells Saru, when he learns the truth. Perhaps this isn’t the last we’ve seen of the Kelpien.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The Bridge Crew Saves the Day

This was another excellent episode for Team Bridge Crew, who use their relative freedom on an occupied Discovery to sabotage the ship’s nacelle, dropping the ship out of warp and allowing the Federation and its allies to catch up. The Bridge Crew does so believing that it will be a suicide mission, as Osyraa has cut off life support to the lower decks of the ship, and they only have one oxygen tank amongst them. It’s Joann, who apparently has very impressive lung capacity, who manages to complete the mission (with an assist from one of those little DOT-23 droids), taking the oxygen tank and leaving her friends to die (per their request). “I love you all,” she tells them, which would have been solid last words. However, once Michael regains control of the ship, she is able to restore life support to the lower decks before her friends/co-workers die. So that’s good.

Are Keyla and Joann Together?

These two have always been depicted as especially close, and the season finale had me wondering yet again if these two might be romantically linked. “You’re alive.” “So are you.” This is their conversation post-nacelle explosion. There are other people there who are also unexpectedly alive. We see them embracing shortly after. I don’t support the cultural reenforcement of romantic relationships as more important than platonic ones, but I do wonder what the nature of this relationship is. Generally, I hope both characters—and their dynamic—get more screen time in Season 4.

Michael Kills Osyrra

Of course dropping the ship out of warp is only part of the solution. The Discovery crew also has to regain control of the ship. This is Michael’s mission. With some help from Book, and via a very cool sequence in the backend of the turbolift, Michael is able to make it to the ship’s data core. She manages to get rid of Osyraa’s goons, but Osyraa gets the upper hand in the fight, literally pushing Michael into the data core. It looks like it might be the end for Michael (though I doubt any viewer actually believed it would be), until shots fire from within the core, taking Osyraa out once and for all.

Michael emerges from the ship itself, telling the Season 3 antagonist: “Unlike you, I never quit.” As a post-murder tagline, it’s not a great one—especially because Osyraa didn’t really seem to be quitting so much as losing in this moment—but the imagery that accompanies it, of Michael literally merging with Discovery to take Osyraa out, is thematically-rich. This has been a season of Discovery really evolving as a character in their own right, and it was nice to see the ship itself have a hand in the crew regaining control of the ship.

Book Can Pilot the Spore Drive

In one of the most game-changing moments of the season, the Discovery crew figures out that, because of ability to communicate empathically with plants and animals, Book can pilot the spore drive. They bet the farm on the conclusion, too, jettisoning the warp core while within Osyraa’s ship Viridian. Book is eventually able to figure out how to jump, but they barely make it away in time. While this was a cool moment in the episode, it is a much cooler reveal for what it might mean moving forward. Book has expressed an interest in joining Starfleet, but it hasn’t been clear what his role in the fleet or on the Discovery might be. His ability to pilot the spore drive certainly makes him invaluable to the Discovery and to the Federation as a whole.

Yeah, Stamets is Still Pissed at Michael

One of the minor, unresolved character threads left lingering at the end of Season 3 is Stamets’ anger towards Michael for forcibly removing him from the Discovery in the season’s penultimate episode. Frankly, Michael made the right choice. If Stamets had remained on the ship, then Osyraa could have forced him to use the spore drive and the Federation never would have been able to catch up. That being said, I can’t say I wouldn’t be pissed at Michael if I were in Stamets’ shoes. By physically forcing Stamets off the ship, she took the choice to stay and try to save his friends and family away from him. But them’s the breaks when you volunteer to be the universe’s sole spore drive pilot.

Gray Gets a Corporeal Form, Then Loses It Again

One of the chief joys of the Season 3 finale was seeing Gray gain corporeal form while in the holo-program, allowing people other than Adira the opportunity to see and interact with him. (Hugh takes the chance to give Gray a big hug!) The holo gave Gray the form of a Vulcan (if you were wondering, Adira is Xahean here), but, for Gray, it just matters that he can be seen. When faced with the dismantling of the holo, Gray tells Adira and Hugh that he doesn’t want to go back to before. “It’s not enough,” he says. “I’m stuck. Tal’s stuck.” Hugh promises that they will find a way to make sure Gray is seen, but when the episode ends, Gray is still invisible to all but Adira again.

Burnham Becomes Captain of the Discovery

Discovery churns through at least one captain per season and the ship ends the season with a different captain than it started with: Michael has replaced Saru as captain (at least for now). Saru has taken a leave of absence to help Su’Kal settle into his life on Kaminar. It’s unclear for how long. When Michael brings up waiting until his return to decide anything permanently, Admiral Vance pushes back, with Saru’s blessing. So will Michael be Discovery captain forever and ever? Frankly, the show seems to have left enough room for the writers’ room to make that decision later, as they are breaking Season 4.

The Federation is Back on Its Feet

The season finale was a happy ending, not only for the Discovery but for the entire Federation. With Osyraa dead, the source of the Burn discovered, and the Discovery equipped with two spore drive pilots, the future is looking promising. As Michael’s closing voiceover tells us, the Discovery is poised to bring dilithium to the worlds of the Federation that have been cut off since the Burn. With this new source, they will be able to properly rejoin the Federation. With this new mission outlined in the finale’s closing minutes, Season 4 seems to already have a new plot structure, one even more based on discovery and diplomacy than Season 3.

We also learned that Trill decided to rejoin the Federation, and the Ni’Var have opened lines of communication with the Federation back up. The fact that the Ni’Var responded to Michael’s request for help earlier in the episode, effectively coming to the Federation’s aid when they needed it the most, says a lot about their potential willingness to become part of the organization again.

Read more

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What Does the Closing Quote Mean?

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 ends with a tribute to Gene Roddenberry, and to his original vision for Star Trek, exemplified through the following quote: “In a very real sense, we are all aliens on a strange planet. We spend most of our lives reaching out and trying to communicate. If during our whole lifetime, we could reach out and really communicate with just two people, we are indeed very fortunate.”

Why did the series decide to end the season this way? As showrunner Michelle Paradise told Comicbook.com: “It emerged closer to the end of the post process as we were finishing post for the season and just recognizing that this was going to be airing at this particular time. And we just felt like it would be appropriate to have something from him. I mean, Gene Roddenberry, we’re only here because of what he did and because of the show that he created and there’s the baseline, the template that he established. And so it felt appropriate to have something from him, a quote from him at the end of our season. And that was one that resonated with us.”

The post Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Finale Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/38ngNr3

[icymirss]

I'm Breaking Up With the Atheist Community

This piece was originally published on Sunday, 11 Sep 2011 00:45:04 +0000 by PaxSkeptica (@PaxSkeptica) and originally hosted at http://pax.skeptica.net/. We are republishing it here as it does not appear to have been archived anywhere else.

Twitter Tagline: "Guys, it's been a good run – I think we gave it our best – but it's over. #atheism"

I've been telling everyone today that I'm breaking up with the atheist community. Two questions came up that required a rather lengthy answer and involved several links, so I turned here. (Besides, it may as well be a matter of record.)

The questions:

What brought you to this conclusion?

What would you suggest as an alternative for the atheist community?

What brought me here? I don't know. A lot of things. I'm tired of reading the same shit every day that's just pissing on Christians and science-worship (yes, I mean that; more on that in a second). I'm tired of listening to people who would as likely as not primarily define themselves as skeptics, when by their behavior you can see that they are not particularly skeptical people. I already wrote about the weird response I got when I questioned a racist joke made by a prominent atheist. I guess the straw that broke the camel's back came today when I asked JT Eberhard why he was bothering to debate this moron.

You can see from said moron's "opening" (I love how this is described like it's going to be some kind of high-stakes chess match) that he's pretty much just shoveling the same shitty, thoroughly-and-repeatedly debunked half a dozen arguments that have been limping along since the 13th century.

Origen – God is the best explanation for the universe. The argument is as follows:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause,

The universe began to exist,

Therefore, the universe has a cause. This cause I call God.

Brilliant. That frankenstein bastardization of Aristotle and an unsubstantiated claim about a deity wouldn't pass for logic in an introductory class at a public high school. This isn't a serious debate any more than me punching an old lady is a heavyweight prizefight. So what's the point? Why waste time skewering an opponent of zero intellectual value when the cost involves diving into a cesspool of stupidity, ignorance, arrogance, and hatred all destined to be slung your way? Why, to convert people.

When I asked JT (and, unexpectedly, several of his followers who chimed in) what the reason was, he started telling me all about this duty to those of us in our 'religious' demographic (his words; I can't quote it here because it was not shared publicly, as much as I'd like to). He basically said that even though I had undoubtedly "read and memorized" all the arguments and counter-arguments, some had not, and that by doing this he was increasing the accessibility of this information. Now I could do a whole post on just what's wrong with that line of reasoning, but let me just say this: That's as religious as anything I've ever heard. To read the quote (again, I wish I could show it) gives the sense that JT is some sort of shepherd guiding newly minted atheists into the fold.

Another commenter gave me his... testimony? Untestimony? "I'm with JT, entirely," he began; and he proceeded to tell me of his difficult and laborious (de)conversion that would have been sped along if only some righteous preachers bloggers like JT Eberhard, PZ Myers, and Greta Christina (his list, not mine) had been there to help him through the transition. (Oh, glory!) Even JT answered at first (and perhaps most tellingly) by saying that his reason was "because a lot of people read this guy". That's the same kind of perverted marketing Christians use to evangelize. That's all it is: evangelism.

I recently rearranged all my lists on Twitter, with one primary purpose in mind. I gutted sec-r, my list of secular humanists, skeptics, and atheists. The reason is, and I experienced the same thing on Google+, most of what these people share is utterly vapid. It's a mix of self-righteous quotes, bitter condemnation of Christians mixed with "OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE THEY DONE NOW" link-sharing, and ejaculations about science, logic, reason, the Archimedean point, or whatever other naturalist trope is floating around the tubes. Seriously, what's the difference between this and this, when you get right down to it? Everything on #atheism is stupid quotes, usually about how atheists are better than believers. Here's a small fraction from my access just now:

@JakeCatrain Jake Catrain Atheist: One who has no belief in god or gods. (Sorry christians, thats it) #atheism Retweeted 4 times

@GodlessAtheist Godless Atheist Christians worry about internal damnation. I just have to worry about what's for dinner. #goodtobeanatheist #atheism

@agaytheist Geoff Robert Warning! Clicking on a Deepak Chopra video link takes you directly to a Deepak Chopra video. - George Hrab #skepticism #atheism

@Monicks Monica Dear Theist: do you fear god? You might suffer Bogyphobia: Fear of fictional characters. Look it up! #atheism #atheist #snark (◕‿~)'

Seriously. Those aren't hand-picked. They're the first four results. What's the difference between that and this kind of crap? I can tell you the difference as I see it: nothing. Nothing at all.

My point is that criticisms of atheism that used to offend me now strike me as basically true. "Atheism is just another religion," Christians sometimes say, or, "What's the point in believing in a negative?" Well, for these people, it basically is. I know there's a hundred one-liners out there already zinging toward me to prove me wrong: "atheism is a religion like bald/not collecting stamps/off is a hair color/hobby/television channel." I would like to start that sentence with the words not believing in god, which – though some of these same practitioners would define 'atheism' as such – is clearly not all that's going on here. It's not just believing in a negative, it's reveling narcissistically in believing in a negative. What else could you call rubbing in people's faces that you don't believe in something which they hold very dear? And not just once, as a mean joke, but basing your entire life and personality around it?

I remember watching the South Park episode about atheism, where Trey and Matt had Cartman go to a future world where religion was no longer, and factions of Atheists fought wars and killed each other while screaming, "Science, damn it!" When I first saw it, I thought it was an infuriating caricature. But then you see these atheists all over Twitter who painstakingly list quasi-synonyms in their Twitter bio ("science, reason, logic, naturalism, antitheism"), and endlessly retweet Randall Munroe's, "It works, bitches!" and all of a sudden you can see the "grain of truth" behind this particular stereotype.

It's certainly not everybody. Consider the context – a Maddox-style rant penned half at two in the morning – before you judge me too harshly. I'm still an enormous fan of CFI, and applaud efforts like FFRF. Obviously I'm still interested in science for the public interest. I love being an atheist because there's no religion in my life, as far as I can help it, and for the reasons outlined above and more, I view a large swath of the atheist subculture (at least online) to be more or less a pseudo-religion: a community built around (the denial of) religious ideas. Even that is too much religion for me, so I'm just going to gracefully back away and let them do their thing. JT also told me something like, "Everybody has their niche and what they're good at." Maybe he's right. Maybe we're like vampires, and we're each individually shaped by the Embrace that was our faith snapping in half and reason inexorably leading us to atheism. Maybe we're all left bitter or wounded in a different fashion, so each has a way of dealing with it. I'm not categorically against what they're doing: it's just not for me.

As for a replacement for the atheist community? It hadn't really occurred to me. After all, I'm not really in the market for one. I much more strongly identify with late 19th century leftist politics (libertarian anarchism, secularism) and pacifism rooted in skepticism than I do with atheism per se, let alone the "gnu atheism" that is so preponderant online. So unlike, I suspect, most members of the online mega(un)church, I'm not so much a part of the community that I'm going to feel any withdrawal. There's no void for me to fill.

PS – Since you read all that, here's your reward: http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ti3t7MAwaaM

[alexanderwrites]

Top of the Flops - Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)

Budget: $1,800,000

Gross (worldwide): ‎$43,625,096

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 71%

Okay, maybe this one isn’t a flop. But I want to talk about Killer Klowns from Outer Space. With clown discourse (clowncourse?) at an all time high, there can be no better time than now to discuss this film, which is a flop in spirit, if not financially. 

KKFOS came along at the end of a decade of movies that celebrated excess. From splatter horrors to body horrors, American cinema still was celebrating the artistic liberation of the 1960′s and 1970′s. But where low-budget horrors from the likes of Troma revelled in grossness, KKFOS is actually very, very mild. 

Now, stick with me through this sentence: if the scene in which a Killer Klown (which is from outer space, by the way) punches the head clean off the body of an angry biker had been featured in any other horror from the 80′s, a huge fountain of blood would’ve accompanied it, but in the hands of the Chiodo brothers, it quietly and bloodlessly sails across the alley and lands on the dirty ground. When a security guard is later dispatched by the Killer Klowns (again: from outer space. Just want to clear that up), he isn’t torn apart limb from limb he’s, uhh, pied to death.  

But we’re jumping into things, and i’ve yet to fully explain it things to you, just as the film refuses to fully explain anything to its dear, precious viewers: Killer Klowns have come to earth in a giant spinning top UFO to turn people in a college town into cotton-candy-wrapped Mummies. Glad we could clear that up. Now, what works about the film is that it’s aware of how dumb it is. It kind of revels in its lack of sense, and is more interested in displaying great stylised makeup and set design. The directors have worked on special effects, animatronics and modelling for the likes of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and The Simpsons, and it does show. Sure, the Clowns (sorry, Klowns. From space) look very dated but they have such a distinctive look that is so of its time, and its one made of the kind of practical effects that I really, truly miss in modern horrors. 

Yes, I miss this. I realise what I said. And the set design inside the spaceship is pulled off very well too, especially considering the budget. Some of it does admittedly look cheap (the black flooring with tape on it kinda says local theatre to me) but look at this:

Yeah it’s not realistic looking, but look at the detail and style of it. Look at the matte art. I would take unrealistic but with tonnes of character over realistic with no character any day. There is effort put into the look and style of the movie which really does set it apart, and as you’d expect from a horror, ahem “comedy” of its era, the performances, dialogue and characters are spectacularly not good. There is a baffling trend throughout the film of characters finding the Murderous Nightmare Klowns cute and delightful until they start killing. People wave, people smile - one women happily says “Pizza!” when one of them arrives at her door. 

Later, a crowd of delighted people gather around one of the nightmare murder klowns as it makes shadow puppets on a wall for them. It is baffling that anyone would be okay to be near these creatures, let alone enthralled. They are thankfully punished for their naivety by being eaten to death by the shadows. But here’s the thing: everyone in this film is for sure supposed to be dumb. It seems pretty clear that the characters acting this way is supposed to be a joke, a pisstake of how pretty much every character in every horror film acted in the 1980s. But clearly, nobody in the film is as dumb as we are, if we’re to believe that these men are 18 YEARS OLD:

The film asks us to accept a lot, but I draw the line at the balding, hairy-chested fellow on the right being under the legal drinking age in the US. We’re not alone in refusing to accept anything in the film, as John Vernon’s archetypal grizzled cop doesn’t believe the dozens of reports of people claiming they’ve been violently attacked by nightmare klowns, even when one of the nightmare murder klowns stands in front of him.

I always find the non-believer trope weird in films, especially when there’s irrefutable evidence of the thing which they doubt: think of all the family christmas movies where the parent doesn’t believe in Santa but is totally fucking nonplussed by having presents appear in their house every year. This is that trope but about Klowns instead of father christmas (who may or may not be from space). Everyone else seems to love the Klowns until they try to murder them, especially the ‘comic relief’ characters The Terenzi Brothers (who for no apparent reason are sex-starved ice cream men), who unquestionably have sex with two lady Klowns, one of whom has gigantic Klown Breasts. 

Sorry for the nightmares, guys! 

So this is the kind of film you’re dealing with. One of Killer Klown Sex and men getting pied to death. It’s damn silly, but it’s also damn entertaining, and there are so many little touches to make it a worthwhile watch. There’s the ridiculous earworm theme tune performed by The Dickies on top of all this, and a giant Klown called Klownzilla, a name which I can only imagine it took months to come up with. I think the film’s sense of lightness gives it character and a unique style - in fact, it was originally just called “Killer Klowns” but the directors were worried it’d make people think it was a slasher. It’s not a slasher at all, and i’m kind of glad it isn’t. They have ray-guns, they blast popcorn and nets at people and they have a fucking balloon-animal attack dog. Like I said: really, really silly.

The film can’t bear to give an even mildly dark ending - the last moment is the main cast getting pied because apparently getting pied is the funniest thing you can even imagine. But i’m glad they did, and i’m glad there’s a film that exists where these things can occur because even if they aren’t hilarious or smart, they’re different. I’m glad we have a trove of cult classics like this which we can dig into and find golden nuggets of nonsense. KKFOS does stand out and the Chiodo brothers clearly wanted it to, and still want it to: they’ve been trying to get another one made since “the day after” the first was released. Maybe now that It has been such a universal success, the world is ready for more Klown Cinema, and maybe, just maybe, it’s ready for more nonsense like this:

Worth a hate watch?: YES, but it might be more of an unironic LOVE watch

Worst/best line: “In Space, no one can eat ice cream” (tagline)

Worst film of 1988?: Nope. That would be Mac & Me. 

[junker-town]

The 58 silliest bowl game names of all time

A list so amazing, the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl isn’t even No. 1.

Lots of college football bowl games have silly names. That has always been the case. At any point in history, however, certain bowls stand above their peers, whether due to absurd sponsors, a weird poetry collision between location and sponsor, or what have you.

Setting aside the many bowls whose sponsors are just trying to sell pretty normal products, here are the strangest bowl names ever. If you haven’t heard the news yet, let me just warn you that the one you’re thinking of right now, the one that’s long been the weirdest ever, has just been beaten.

58. Visit Florida Tangerine Bowl (2001) in Orlando

All bowls were originally tourism things. The verb shows commitment, and all bowls should use one. Come on down to the Test Drive Jeep Eagle Aloha Bowl.

56. (tie) AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl (2008-12) in Shreveport, La. AdvoCare V100 Texas Bowl (2014-16) in Houston

The company frequently accused of being a pyramid scheme travels the bowl landscape, like a medicine salesman in the Wild West.

55. Progressive Gator Bowl (2011) in Jacksonville

“The medium-sized animals I eat in one big bite are all locally sourced.”

50. (tie) Blockbuster Bowl (1990-93) in Miami IBM OS/2 Fiesta Bowl (1993-95) in Tempe, Az. CompUSA Florida Citrus Bowl (1994-99) in Orlando EA Sports Las Vegas Bowl (1999) Sega Sports Las Vegas Bowl (2001-02)

The wave of pre-2000s technology bowls. Let the awkward nostalgia wash over you. There’s an even weirder wave like this one, later on in the list.

Nothing says “fiesta” quite like IBM’s operating system.

49. Rose Bowl presented by PlayStation 2 (2003) in Pasadena, Ca.

The Rose Bowl is too important to have a title sponsor, technically, so it’s been doing this “presented by” thing since 1999. This sport’s grandest and most serious game being Presented By a video game platform whose latest releases included The Clone Wars, Nickelodeon Party Blast, and The Simpsons Skateboarding: perfect.

48. Alamo Bowl Presented By MasterCard (2002) in San Antonio

That year when the Alamo Bowl was just as fancy as the Rose Bowl.

47. Popeyes Bahamas Bowl (2014-16)

That’s about the most pleasant combo of three words I can imagine, but here’s the silly part:

I am in a stadium built by the Chinese government in the Bahamas, watching an American football game.

Central Michigan is lateraling to almost complete the biggest comeback in bowl history.

When the Chippewas come up just short, the Hilltoppers eat Popeyes. There are no Popeyes in the Bahamas.

46. Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (2011-)

Fake it ‘til you make it, and at this point, the Idaho Potato Bowl is somewhat Famous, I guess.

45. Gotham Bowl (1961-62) in New York City

24. (tie) AXA Liberty Bowl (1997-2003) in Memphis Sylvania Alamo Bowl (1999-2001) in San Antonio Culligan Holiday Bowl (1998-2001) in San Diego GMAC Mobile Alabama Bowl/GMAC Bowl (2000-2010) ConAgra Foods Hawaiʻi Bowl (2002) PlainsCapital Fort Worth Bowl (2003-04) R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl (2006-) Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl (2006-13) in Fort Worth EagleBank Bowl (2008-09) in Annapolis, Md. uDrove Humanitarian Bowl (2010) in Boise Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl (2010-12) in San Diego Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl (2010-) in Nashville Military Bowl presented by Northrop Grumman (2010-) in Annapolis BBVA Compass Bowl (2011-14) in Birmingham National University Holiday Bowl (2013-14) in San Diego Heart of Dallas Bowl presented by PlainsCapital Bank (2013-14) Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl (2013-15) Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl (2014-) in Fort Worth Raycom Media Camellia Bowl (2014-) in Montgomery, Al. NOVA Home Loans Arizona Bowl (2015-) in Tucson, Az. San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl (2005-16)/Holiday Bowl (2017-) in San Diego

The “how could bowl sponsorship possibly inspire anyone to spend money on these things?” group.

AXA is a French insurance firm, Sylvania is a subsidiary of a German lighting manufacturer, Culligan is a water treatment company based in Illinois, GMAC was an auto lender, ConAgra is a huge company with dozens of food brands, PlainsCapital is a bank that’s probably not in your town, R+L Carriers trucks stuff, EagleBank is a bank that’s probably not in your town, Bell sells war vehicles to governments, uDrove was some sort of trucking app, Bridgepoint is a for-profit university, National is a non-profit university (this was when the Holiday Bowl went legit), BBVA is also a bank that’s probably not in your town, Northrop Grumman also sells war vehicles to governments, Franklin American Mortgage sells entire houses, PlainsCapital is yet another bank that’s probably not in your town, Royal Purple sells industrial lube, Lockheed Martin sells war vehicles to governments, Raycom is a TV thing you either get or don’t get, NOVA will sell you an entire house, and the SDCCU is probably not in your town.

23. Salad Bowl (1947-55) in Phoenix

Lots of games have been named after funny foods. This is the funniest of the genre.

22. Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl (2014-)

You’d think the last word this very salty chicken chain — folks, so much salt, you wouldn’t believe, so many people are telling me about the salt, everywhere I go — would want people to think about is the word “heart.” If ever I were to consider ordering a bucket of Zaladz, and in that moment, someone said to me the word “heart,” I would stop.

12. (tie) Insight.com Bowl (1997-2001) in Tucson, Az. HomePoint.com Music City Bowl (1999) in Nashville MicronPC.com Bowl (1999-2000) in Miami Crucial.com Humanitarian Bowl (1999-2003) in Boise Ourhouse.com Florida Citrus Bowl (2000) in Orlando galleryfurniture.com Bowl (2000-01) in Houston EV1.net Houston Bowl (2002-05) PapaJohns.com Bowl (2006-10) in Birmingham GoDaddy.com Bowl (2011-13) in Mobile, Al. TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl (2012-13) in Jacksonville

I still can’t believe we had football games named after websites for almost two decades. I can’t believe that happened.

11. TaxSlayer Bowl/TaxSlayer Gator Bowl (2012-) in Jacksonville

All these years in, and I still don’t know what to say. What a stupid series of words!

10. Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl (2017-)

Really biased in favor of the ones with lots and lots of verbiage, like NFL play calls. Walk into the huddle and bark this out, then see if you don’t put 25 yards on the Colts.

9. Duck Commander Independence Bowl (2014) in Shreveport

WAR DUCK WAR BOWL.

8. BattleFrog Fiesta Bowl (2015) in Glendale, Az.

WAR FROG PARTY BOWL.

4. (tie) magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl (2008) St. Petersburg Bowl Presented by Beef 'O' Brady's (2009) Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl (2010-13) in St. Petersburg, Fl. Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl (2014)

Basically every name the St. Pete Bowl has ever been known by, other than the current one. We swore this game would never top being sponsored by a faux-Irish restaurant that cannot use apostrophes correctly, a USB device, and invisible internet money, and yet, see No. 1.

3. Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl (1991-97) in Shreveport

For decades, this was the go-to example anyone would use when listing off consolation-prize games or complaining about there being too many bowls. Saying “the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl” just does not happen, unless the speaker is making fun of something about bowl season.

This name became so synonymous with the idea of an embarrassing bowl trip that, 19 years after it’d changed, then-Houston head coach Tom Herman summoned it to mock rival SMU.

If you're satisfied with going 7-5 and going to the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl, then great. Then you're in the wrong program and we'll find a place for you to go. I hear there's a private school up in Dallas that's really looking to try to get to seven wins.

(Herman then lost an upset to that private school, proving the mere mention of the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl lowers one’s talent levels.)

Topping the legendary Poulan Weed Eater Bowl was something I never thought I’d see happen in my lifetime. This was the 47-game Oklahoma win streak of terrible bowl names, and yet, see No. 1.

2. Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl (2018-)

Textually alone, that’s not a silly name. It’s the context, though. Oh my god, the context. Bowl owner ESPN explains:

The Makers Wanted tagline serves as a call-to-action for Elk Grove Village’s thriving community and the thousands of businesses that are based there.

“Elk Grove Village is home to the largest industrial park in the United States, spurred by our village’s commitment to being beyond business-friendly,” said Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson.

Here’s a map from Elk Grove Village to the Bahamas:

Google Maps

A town near Chicago’s airport that literally has an elk grove sponsors a bowl game in the Caribbean. No further questions, your honor.

1. The Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl (2017-) in St. Petersburg

The St. Pete Bowl is the absolute god of incredible names. If the entire top five of this list was nothing but St. Pete Bowl names, no one could complain.

This one is so good that it was hard to believe it was real, despite one of the sport’s best reporters breaking the news. He had to circle back and announce on Twitter that he was not kidding.

It’s not fake news: St. Pete Bowl really has been renamed Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl. Really! https://t.co/fcxi8GKyeI

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) August 18, 2017

Is this brand as midlife-crisis-y as it sounds? Oh hell yeah it is.

Even better: the game was initially brought to you by lawnmowers IS PLAYED ON FAKE GRASS IN A BASEBALL STADIUM. Fake grass THAT USED TO BE SOME OF THE WORST TURF YOU’VE EVER BEHELD. The game’s sponsor was completely useless within its own stadium. Diabolical.

The greatest thing about the St. Petersburg Bowl is no longer a thing. Mourn with us. https://t.co/AqbQpXw6kp

— SB Nation CFB (@SBNationCFB) April 1, 2017

It’s since moved to the Bucs’ stadium, the one with the huge fake pirate ship in one end zone.

Please put lawnmowers in the pirate ship.

What’s a “Gasparilla?”

Well, you see, Tampa has an annual event (about a month after this bowl game) called the Gasparilla Pirate Fest.

gasparillapiratefest.com

OK, but what’s a “Gasparilla?”

Per Wikipedia:

The theme of the Gasparilla Festival was inspired by the local legend of José Gaspar, a Spanish naval officer who turned to piracy. [...] Despite this colorful history, there is no evidence that a pirate named Gaspar or Gasparilla ever operated off the Florida coast. [...] In fact, researchers have found no contemporaneous records either in Spain or the United States that mention Gaspar's existence, and no physical evidence of his presence in Florida has ever been uncovered.

To sum up: the bowl that was mostly known for ugly fake grass is now brought to you by an unnecessary lawnmower company that is CERTIFIED BADASS, BABY and has the same name as Diddy’s record label, all in honor of a pirate who might not’ve been real and who definitely had nothing to do with Tampa, St. Petersburg, colleges, football, lawnmowers, Bitcoin, USB connectors, Steamy Queso ‘O’ Poppers, or bowl games.

That’s one of the dumbest sentences ever typed, and I could not possibly love this sport more.

Wanna make your own? Here you go.

We threw a ton of bowl names into a computer and had AI generate a bunch of fake names:

(function() { var l = function() { new pym.Parent( 'change-me-in-the-spreadsheet__graphic', 'https://apps.voxmedia.com/graphics/sbnation-cfb-neural-network/'); }; if(typeof(pym) === 'undefined') { var h = document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0], s = document.createElement('script'); s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.src = 'https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/pym/0.4.5/pym.js'; s.onload = l; h.appendChild(s); } else { l(); } })();

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 1x01-- Inauguration

For those of you familiar with my posts, you know what this is. For those of you new to this fandom, I write obnoxiously long recaps of every episode (and you can find them all here). I started doing this with 6x01 of The Good Wife and I’m continuing the tradition for The Good Fight. They’re obnoxiously long because I try to be detailed, but they’re in bullet points so it should be easy to skip around and find comments on a particular scene. 

As always, I’m happy to elaborate/explain/discuss any of the ideas in here. I’m hoping to get a 1x02 recap up before 1x03 goes live, but we’ll see. 

Often, it’s easy to tell what a show wants to be from the way it introduces itself to the audience. First impressions aren’t all that matter—but they’re important. They’re especially important on the spinoff of a show that had an opening scene so iconic the writers recreated it seven years later, expecting viewers to get the reference. TGW’s opening scene set the tone for the whole series, so the bar was high for TGF, a show that exists essentially because CBS wants more money. How do you craft an opening scene that sets the tone for a show where the premise is PLEASE GIVE US YOUR MONEY?

The answer, it turns out, is to begin the series with a scene that acts as an argument in favor of its own existence. As Diane watches last month’s inauguration, we’re given a reason to care about this show about a diverse group of women fighting back. Why should we tune in to this show? Because we’re ready for a fight, too.

So, the opening moments of TGF—Diane, alone, watching that man’s inauguration—are irrelevant to most of what follows. You could argue (as I think the Kings have tried to, bizarrely) that Diane decides to retire to run away from the shitshow, but, come on. You and I both know that Diane decided to retire because the Kings needed a way to make her extremely vulnerable to the scandal they created. We know she would’ve retired if Hillary had won (that “shattered every glass ceiling” line they say they had to replace was terrible, btw), and we know she would’ve retired if this spinoff had aired a year earlier. As far as I’m concerned, the opening scene stands alone, and that’s fine.

In fact, since it sets the tone for the whole show (which will, undoubtedly, become more political as we get into the episodes written/filmed post-election), I’d argue it works (much, much) better as an opening scene than the Maia intro (here’s a new woman you’ve never seen before! She is a lawyer!) or the Diane intro (here is a house in France that will be important to this episode and only this episode!).

As much as I hate to admit it—because admitting it means that we’re really living in a world where that man is POTUS, the most recent presidential election gave TGF the reason it needed to exist. The moment I saw the tagline “GET NASTY”, it clicked into place. Suddenly I was excited about TGF as more than a weekly check-in with some characters I used to love. Suddenly I liked the name The Good Fight much more than The Greater Good (the show’s working title). Nothing had changed about the show itself—the “fight” in the title was still about recovering from a fictional scandal; the show was still something that came about because CBS wanted to profit more off of TGW—but it felt different. It felt necessary. And, even better: the show knew it.

The Kings claim they didn’t expect Trump to win, but they do have a knack for being eerily good at predicting what the political mood will be like in a few months. They seem to be right on the money with The Good Fight, even if they had to rethink the opening. The name and premise of the show, both decided in advance of the election, are about struggling.

(I know the Kings think there’s something darkly funny about watching Diane watch the inauguration or whatever but come on. They’re marketing to an audience that would not only understand that “Get Nasty” is a reference to “Nasty Woman” but be driven to watch by that reference.)

Before I move on: Hi, Diane… I’m sorry, but I have a message from the future—one fucking month in the future—this is really happening and it is a horrific shitshow.

Diane turns off the TV, drops the remote, and walks out of the frame as Erin McKewon’s “You Were Right About Everything” begins to play. She has the right idea.

A few seconds in and TGF is already spot-on with its music choices. Yay! (I don’t know if I like the songs used in The Good Universe because I associate them with the shows or because the people choosing them and I have similar tastes in music, but I’ll take it either way.)  

Diane’s dark living room gives way to an image of an unfamiliar face against a black background. Moments later, the lights come on, and we see Maia Rindell, nervously waiting to take the bar exam. It’s hard to make much of her from this glimpse—who wouldn’t be nervous waiting to take the bar exam? Why would a character be on this show and not be a lawyer? One thing, though, is clear: she’s just starting out her career.

Cut to the French countryside, where Diane is touring a beautiful estate. She takes in the view and smiles: she’s going to love it here.

Then we’re back with Maia, sometime later. She’s waiting impatiently for her bar exam results. When she learns that she’s passed, she screams, alarming her sleeping girlfriend, Amy.

Maia begins to jump up and down on the bed and then jumps on top of Amy. It’s super adorable.  

(Before I continue: I’m happy that a) Maia is queer, b) this is not remarked upon or treated as a huge reveal, and c) she’s in a committed long-term relationship. Seeing as TGW had a total of zero lead characters in relationships that resemble the ones most people actually have, this is a welcome change.)

Also: Maia and Amy’s apartment is amazing; they live behind a giant clock.

The music continues, and now Diane’s in a setting both familiar and unfamiliar: it’s familiar because David Lee and Howard Lyman are there; it’s unfamiliar because it’s an office in New York City instead of the old L/G/KeyboardSmash offices. Okay, I know they’re still in Chicago. But that... is definitely New York…

Anyway. Diane’s announcing her retirement. She stands and walks around the room, totally in control. The firm has grown since we last saw it. David and Howard congratulate her, and David secretly rejoices as the music ends. More power for him!

You know what I find odd? Lucca isn’t in the opening sequence. She’s ostensibly also a co-lead, so where is she in this sequence that starts of the show? My hope is that this doesn’t indicate she’s less of a co-lead and was instead an intentional move so her appearance later is more sudden. (Then again, this sequence doesn’t hint that Diane knows Maia or that Maia’s going to work at Diane’s firm, so… I see no reason Lucca couldn’t have been included too.)

The firm now has NINE name partners (LDGLLGLKT) because the Kings think they’re clever. I’m less amused by this than I am excited to know they (finally) understand that the audience is so over the name changes.

It’s Maia’s first day at LockhartKeyboardSmash, and she’s making friends one of the other new associates.

Maia wears a rosary ring, but she is not religious. Hm.

She is, however, nervous. She seems to be a very nervous person in general, though maybe that’s just my impression because we’re mostly seeing her in environments where she’s uncomfortable. (Maia is such an Alicia-esque character—the original casting call for her said it, not me!—that I wonder if Alicia used to act like that, too. Did Alicia struggle to put together a sentence without hesitating, the way Maia does? If so, when did she get that out of her system and learn to pause strategically instead? Law school? Being a politician’s wife? Gradually over time? Ok back to Maia now.)

I would never want to receive a job orientation from David Lee, and that’s all I have to say about that.

David calls off names of the new associates, and his tone changes when he gets to Maia. Be a little more obvious with your ass kissing, would you?

“Say hello to your parents for me, would you?” David tells her. He also informs her that some flowers have arrived for her, because apparently her parents are clueless as to the fact that she might not want to publicize, on her first day of work, that she’s the daughter of prominent billionaires.

Maia tells her mom not to send any more gifts; she doesn’t want to seem “entitled.” At least someone has some self-awareness! “Are people not being nice to you?” Maia’s mom, Bernadette Peters (!!!!!) asks. That one line is enough for me to recognize that it’s amazing Maia even understands that entitled is a thing people might call her.

Lenore, sitting in her office that looks like a living room but is really adjacent to a trading floor (what?), asks Maia if she wants Diane to give her her own office. Oh boy.

(Maia may not want to be seen as entitled… but I have to ask why, right out of law school, she took a job at her godmother’s firm. I’m not saying she shouldn’t have taken the job or anything... I’m just saying that while she understands she’s being perceived as entitled, she’s not exactly rocking the boat trying to accomplish things without her privilege. She seems pretty damn comfortable benefitting from it.)

Maia tries to rid herself of the Flowers of Privilege by mixing them in with the other LGKeyboardSmash floral arrangements. Howard walks by and assumes she’s a florist. Heh.

Maia is then called into Diane’s office. I love Diane’s new office, especially the wallpaper.

Diane also offers to give Maia her own office. This is because Diane is Maia’s godmother and she wants to spoil her. Oof. I get the impulse to help, but in what world is that helping to do anything other than make instant enemies for Maia?

Diane gives Maia a folio (is that what those things are called? I’m blanking on the word) that was given to her by Chicago’s first female public defender. She calls it a “baton” and tells Maia it’s her turn to carry it. Awww. It’s amazing how instantly I buy that Diane has a goddaughter even after seven seasons without a single mention of Maia.

Diane brings Maia into a deposition. Before we find out the topic of our COTW, we learn that Lucca’s not at LGSKGJSLG38527;;jslfj82745K anymore. What a shock.

Lucca’s been at Reddick and Boseman, the firm she’s at now, for four months. “Alicia too?” Diane wonders. “No, just me,” Lucca says pleasantly, but she doesn’t offer any further comments, so it comes off like unspoken shit went down. I don’t really care, though. I know why Alicia and Lucca aren’t working together and aren’t as close as they were, and it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with TGF’s plot. I don’t want TGF to tell me what Alicia’s up to, because I have my own headcanons. This line is the bare minimum for addressing her absence, and that’s fine by me. (I hope she and Lucca didn’t have a falling out, though. I would love to think they’re still friendly and working together, but obviously, if that were the case, there’d be a strong reason for Alicia to still show up frequently in TGF, and that’s not going to happen.)

Adrian Boseman walks in, interrupting any chance we had at learning more about Alicia’s whereabouts. I like you already, Adrian! No, but really: I like Adrian.

He sizes up the room, noting that all of the lawyers his firm brought are black and Diane’s whole team is white. Diane laughs off his comment. Sure, Diane.

The case is a police brutality case, and there’s a video. Case stuff happens; we spend a lot of time watching Maia react to it. Also there’s metadata, a word the Kings will never tire of using.

Maia thinks they should settle for 4 million (Diane’s asked for her opinion). Diane says they’ve been asked to settle for under $500,000. See, they’re representing Cook County now.

Adrian encourages Lucca to “play the radical” but she doesn’t want to; she thinks Diane will know. Lucca does anyway.

Diane makes an argument about Adrian’s firm taking on police brutality cases to make a profit. This is something I’d be interested in learning more about. The Kings said they’ve done their research on this, but I’d like to do a little research of my own.

“We’re both using this case, Lucca; why don’t you just stick to the facts?” Diane says. This is one of those arguments where it’s hard for me to determine who’s right and who’s wrong because we’re not given all the facts, but I think I’m going to side with Lucca here. There’s using a case to make a profit, and using a case to do good and make a profit. Only one of those sides contains “doing good,” so why would I suddenly only focus on the profit part?

Maia has the same questions I do. “Are we on the right side on this one?” she asks.

“We are on a necessary side,” Diane explains. Hold up. I understand that it’s necessary because this is how legal procedure works in this country and all that. But how is it necessary that Diane defend racist police departments who use unwarranted force and beat the shit out of black people? How is that a necessary side? Diane didn’t take on this case because she believes in the innocence of these particular policemen. She took on this case because Cook County is a good client to have. If she can sleep at night, then fine. But don’t tell me it’s a necessary side just because they might be innocent. You could say that about literally every single side of every single case. Isn’t that the whole point of trials? Everyone’s entitled to representation, innocent until proven guilty?

Diane continues with her speech: “People I’ve thought with all my heart were guilty turned out to be innocent, and people I thought were saints, they, um, they weren’t. That’s why you don’t go on instinct. You wait. You listen. And watch. Eventually everyone reveals themselves.” Argh. I find this so unsatisfying as an answer. It’s not bad advice to keep an open mind, but it feels like Diane’s not saying “keep an open mind instead of making snap judgments” but rather saying “keep an open mind because it’ll make you feel better about representing people you’d rather not be representing.” On second thought, that is useful advice. After all, Maia still has to defend clients she thinks are guilty, and maybe that would help her do it.

“People I thought were saints, they, um, they weren’t.” The Kings have said this line is about Alicia. If you follow me on Twitter, you know this has been under my skin for days now. At first, I thought Diane would never say these words. I’ve reconsidered. While I still think it’s odd she’d think of Alicia before, I dunno, the liberal legend who turned out to be a rapist (W205—I’m writing W in front of TGW episode numbers and F in front of TGF episode numbers, btw) or her dad who accused his best friend of being a communist (W419) or her husband who she discovered cheated on her, I suppose it’s possible, especially since this scene comes right after a meeting with Lucca. (Also, why would Diane have learned this lesson from Alicia’s betrayal in W722 and not from 40 years of being a lawyer?)

But, it irks me a little that Diane would use Saint Alicia as an example here. If anything, Diane was one of Alicia’s biggest critics throughout TGW’s run, and she was always suspicious of her (she never bought into the Saint Alicia myth!). In W101, Diane believes Alicia’s being entitled and trying to upstage her (Alicia is really attempting to help a client and clumsily moves a little too fast). There’s another season 1 episode where Diane is and remains convinced Alicia’s using SLG to fight Peter’s battles (this thought has not crossed Alicia’s mind). There’s a season two episode where Diane asks Alicia to join her new firm behind Will’s back, and the second Diane finds out Will knows about the new firm, she says that Alicia must’ve told him (Will didn’t know that Alicia knew). Diane befriends Alicia in season 3 in order to discourage her from sleeping with Will. Even in the later seasons, there are episodes like W620, where a misunderstanding is enough for Diane to believe Alicia’s scheming against her, or W703, where an even sillier misunderstanding leads Diane, for the second time in like five episodes, to mistrust Alicia. And that’s not even including the time that, you know, Alicia plotted for months to leave Diane’s firm and take clients with her. But sure. Diane thought Alicia was a saint.

I think what’s happening here is that the Kings thought they’d be cute by referring to Alicia as a saint, because SAINT ALICIA. The problem is that they put those words in Diane’s mouth, and now it sounds like Diane is saying she actually bought into the Saint Alicia crap. But maybe that’s the part of the point. Maybe Diane’s trying to save face just a little bit. After all, it’s easier to admit that you mistakenly believed in the same larger-than-life myth everyone else bought into than it is to admit that you had your suspicions, truly believed you knew someone, and were proven wrong. Ironically, if Diane’s trying to teach Maia that people aren’t always what they seem, she’d be better off telling her the full story.

(Um, also, I’m being a little unfair. Obviously a lot of the reason why Diane would reference Alicia here is that she was hurt—whether she “should have been” or not—by Alicia’s actions. I’m not questioning why Diane would mention Alicia; I’m questioning why she’d use the word saint to describe her own views towards a woman she’s been suspicious of since day one.)

At Reddick/Boseman, the attorneys are having an internal meeting about settlements, and we get our first glimpse of Barbara Kolstad, who would be my new favorite character if I didn’t also love all of the other characters. Barbara asks Lucca for advice on how to handle this. “I think Diane’s got something to prove and she’s out to prove it,” Lucca says. (Oh yeah! In all of my talk about Diane’s reasoning, I forgot to mention that this is her last case and she doesn’t want to lose it. Also, that reminds me that the last time Diane thought she was working her last case, the client fired her and hired Alicia instead. Yes. Diane definitely thought Alicia was a saint.)

Barbara understands what Lucca’s saying. I really like the way Erica Tazel plays Barbara’s thought process—her eyes express everything.

Seriously, I can’t wait to see more from Barbara and Adrian.

Reddick/Boseman is quite obviously the old LGksadjklasjflkahg set after some (minor) renovations. I think, mostly, they just painted, redecorated, and took out the central conference room. I don’t think there’s an in-universe reason they’re in the same space; I think there’s a budget reason.

Lucca has to put on a British accent so Adrian’s call will be put through faster. Haha, it’s just incredible that Lucca has a believable British accent. I don’t know how in the world they came up with that one.

Adrian is amused by Lucca’s fake/real accent, and I’m amused by his amusement. Unamused? Lucca.

Now we’re watching a retirement slide show for Diane. “Good Luck Diane! We’ll miss you!” a slide reads in an ugly font. The narration on the slideshow says that Diane was an assistant district attorney. Wait. So she practiced law somewhere other than Chicago (since it’s ADA and not ASA), and she didn’t start out in a private firm?! Woah. Also, omg, young Diane!

Diane’s many friends congratulate her and joke that if she wants to come out of retirement, they’ll have work for her.

The Rindells appear and briefly talk finances. Hmmm. Then Maia and Amy arrive, and Lenore asks when they’re getting married—they don’t have the Supreme Court excuse anymore. (So, Maia and Amy have been together for a while.)

A photo of Diane and Will pops up the slideshow next, and Diane wistfully stares at it. I’m glad that made it in. <3

Then the party’s over, and… that was fast. I was expecting to spend a whole act there.

Outside in the valet line, Maia’s dad gives her a weird warning about her uncle Jax.

Case stuff happens. Maia notices that there’s a car in the background of the video that has its own camera, so there’s an alternate recording of the events somewhere. What a great thing it is that Maia has enough money to know that! (I kid, I kid. It’s an important find.)

The familiar TGUniverse score is back now, but it sounds a bit more up-tempo and seems to have percussions now. Fine by me.

Maia feels triumphant for a moment, then Lyman mistakes her for a florist again (… ffs, I just wrote “florrist,” with two rs like I’m writing Florrick, because habit), and then she gets a call from Amy, informing her that their apartment is being searched.

Two things of note on the search warrant: one, Maia’s address is listed and it is a bogus address that gives no indication of where in the city she might live, and two, it’s dated 2/24/2017, so TGF takes place a few days ahead of realtime. I expect that TGF will be as bad with timeline as TGW was, so…

Amy tells Maia that the search is connected to Maia’s parents, then gets off the phone to argue with some agents who are trying to tell her what she is and isn’t allowed to do.

Maia calls her dad, who doesn’t pick up: he’s having a drink. Then Diane’s called out of a deposition to talk to her accountant. Uh oh.

Maia arrives at her family’s home just in time to see her dad being taken away in handcuffs. “I didn’t do it, Maia,” he says. “I know,” she replies. But does she? 

Diane hasn’t heard the news yet. She turns on the TV and sees what’s going on: BILLIONAIRE INVESTOR HENRY RINDELL ARRESTED. He ran a Ponzi scheme… and now all of Diane’s retirement money is gone. 

“FUCK,” Diane says when she learns all her savings are gone. That’s a very well deserved inaugural f-bomb, show!

Now it’s time for the credits sequence. At first, they seem like nothing special: cast names in an ugly font and images of objects you’d find in an office. Then the objects BEGIN TO SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST IN SLOW MOTION as the score gets more operatic. I’m not sure I understand, but I’m not sure I need to.

(I don’t associate most of the TGW/TGF score with Alicia—more with the general feel of TGUniverse’s Chicago—but it’s weird to me that the piece of music in the TGF credits is the one from the 6x21 scene where Alicia and Grace turn Zach’s room into a home office. It’s possible they’ve used it before, but it only took me a second to place it. And I’m bad at identifying instrumental music, so I must strongly associate it with Alicia. Weird. 6x21 is an episode so Alicia-centric that when I wrote about it, I suggested that TGW no longer needed most of its non-Alicia series regulars!)

This episode was directed by Brooke Kennedy. I like it when Brooke directs, since she’s the producer most involved with the day-to-day on set. She has a very good understanding of the show’s themes, and she’s usually able to find interesting ways to visualize those themes.

This show was not just created by the Kings: there’s some other dude listed as a creator. I’m not even going to bother to write his name here, because… well, because I haven’t heard much about his role in the creative process, which I take to mean that he was called in to help with the show when it looked like the Kings weren’t going to be involved, and the moment the Kings returned, his level of involvement decreased significantly. I’m curious to know the real story.

Apparently you can see some dude’s bare ass in the first scene of act 2, but it’s so hidden in shadow I’d have to raise my screen’s brightness all the way and really look to see it. And, I’m sorry, CBS, but I really don’t care enough about this guy’s ass to get excited about the nudity.

The naked guy is with Lucca. Lucca’s watching the Rindell scandal unfold on TV. She recognizes Maia and watches carefully.

Maia, Amy, and Lenore wait for the family lawyer to arrive. Maia was on the board of a foundation, which might’ve been a front. Amy realizes this is bad: Maia needs her own lawyer. Lenore tries to convince Maia otherwise, but Maia knows Amy’s right.

Some dude on the news is insisting that Maia must’ve been in on the scheme. As the news plays, Maia showers. Amy joins her and comforts her. I’m excited to get more moments like this from Amy and Maia—not shower scenes, but scenes that show how they support each other from day to day, how well they know each other, and stuff like that.

Diane and her accountant go over the details of her new financial reality. It’s bad. Her money’s gone, even money that wasn’t involved in the fund is at risk (including Kurt’s money; they haven’t divorced yet), and all the charities she’s steered towards the Rindells have also lost their money. The house in France is gone. And Diane can’t even retire. She might not even be able to keep her apartment.

Christine Baranski is amazing. Have I said that yet?

At the next Lockhart Deckler Lee whatever meeting, Diane sits at the head of the table. Brooke positions the camera behind Diane, so we see everyone staring at her. She commanded the room in the earlier scene where she announced her retirement, but here, she’s not the one with the power. And everyone can see right through her speech about not wanting to retire.

Diane’s lost most of her leverage, but not all of it: she can still remind the partners they’re going to lose Cook County’s business without her. The score from W601 beings to play. Not sure why.

In the elevator at work, someone recognizes Maia and begins to yell at her. “I know where you work, you stupid bitch,” he screams. You ruined everything, you stupid bitch, SING WITH ME!

Maia’s new lawyer, Yesha, is waiting for her when she gets off the elevator. Yesha is 25, so Maia doesn’t trust her. Yesha seems capable, but inexperienced, and Maia resents having to get a lawyer at all.

Diane embarks on a quest to find a new job. Might one of her friends that said they’d always have a position open for her be willing to take her on? Everyone thinks she’s looking for an emeritus position. She’s not. And not even her friends have room for her, not now.

Diane gets to say “bullshit” and it feels so natural and appropriate to the moment it was only on rewatch that I processed it as a curse word. I’m glad—and unsurprised—to see that the Kings know how and when to use swear words.

“You’re poison. No firm will hire you,” Diane’s friend, Renee, informs her. Quick! Where’s the nearest desk!? Shove everything off of it!!! Now!!!

After a long and frustrating day, Diane returns home to find Kurt waiting on the stairs outside her home. She invites him in for a drink, and they discuss divorce. “It’s about money. It’s not about us,” she insists. Kurt doesn’t seem to care. Diane says it’s in his lap. Kurt says he didn’t leave her; Diane says that actually, he did—when he slept with Holly. I’m not sure I understand why Diane wouldn’t initiate the divorce? Does she not really want to? Does she not want to accept that it’s over? Does she want Kurt to accept responsibility? Maybe her reasons will become clearer later on. Or maybe she’ll stay married to but estranged from Kurt until season seven and beyond. (Sound familiar?)

Kurt isn’t even sure where they stand now. Honestly, neither am I. Did Kurt really cheat on Diane while they were married?! I still can’t believe that.

At any rate, Kurt still knows how to be there for Diane. She explains her current predicament to him and starts to cry. “How is my life suddenly so fucking meaningless?” Diane wonders. “It isn’t,” Kurt reassures her. I’ve said it before and I have a feeling I’ll be saying it many times over the course of TGF’s run: Christine Baranski is amazing.

I’m rereading this section of my recap, and it just occurred to me that I didn’t even think to comment about what it means for someone as successful as Diane to lose everything she’s known. I think part of the reason my mind didn’t go there is that this screams “NEW SHOW, NEW SCANDAL” instead of “NATURAL PLOT DEVELOPMENT,” but I think I should try to treat it as the latter. Diane’s emotional arc, no matter why it came about, is something that’ll drive this show going forward. For ages, I’ve thought of Diane as a character who works best in a supporting role. She’s well-defined enough to be a lead, but she’s so stable and successful—where’s the story? I can picture her leading a procedural, or a character study drama, but a huge part of her character was that she’d worked so hard, pre-TGW, that aside from firm drama bullshit and ambitions of getting a judgeship, her life was already the way she wanted it to be. She was more captivating than her story arc, if that makes sense. Because of the way the Kings like to write, it makes a lot of sense to me that to promote Diane to lead, they’d want to turn her into an unlikely fish out of water. Now she’s a captivating character with a captivating plot. And better still, a lot of the reason this plot is likely to work is that we know what Diane’s accomplished and how hard she’s worked. When she cries about her life feeling meaningless, we know exactly what meaning she used to find in her life. And, because she was always so stable and self-assured (and well-written!) as a secondary character on TGW, watching her lose everything hits even harder.

Maia’s playing with her rosary ring and lurking in reception, waiting to greet Diane. Diane’s not in a great mood, to say the least.

“We have a little opening right here,” Adrian advises Lucca, observing the icy Maia/Diane interaction. "Go for jugular.” As he says this, from approximately his POV, Maia is literally standing in the opening between two panes of glass.

Case stuff happens. This case is barely there. Lucca makes things personal, and Diane steps out.

Elevator Asshole who called Maia a stupid bitch has returned to complain more about Maia. Dude. It sucks that you lost your money, but you’re a misogynistic asshole who’s hanging around lobbies all day to harass a 25 year old woman at her place of work. You’re pathetic. And scary. And please don’t follow Maia, you creep.

Maia runs into the ladies’ room. Lucca takes care of the creep. He screams he’s going to sue Maia, and Lucca screams at him, “THEN DO IT. BUT RIGHT NOW, FUCK OFF!” YAY LUCCA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I want so much more from Lucca in this series. In the first episode, she’s pretty much just playing lawyer and supportive friend. I’ll have more to say about Lucca in episode two.)

Lucca walks into the bathroom, and Maia scurries into a stall, not sure if whoever opened the door is a friend or a foe. Lucca looks straight into the mirror and gives Maia a pep talk.

“When they see you cry, it makes them happy. So get it out of your system here,” she begins. Maia eyes her through the opening in the stall door—Lucca’s positioned herself where she can easily be seen. And she knows Maia’s watching.

Maia doesn’t understand why Lucca, who’s on the opposing side of the case, would be helping her. So Lucca explains it’s because Maia is the New Alicia. At least, that’s the (not very sub) subtext of her words.

No, but really: why is Lucca helping Maia? Lucca may like to say she’s out for herself, and she speaks with the non-nonsense, hard, strident tone of someone you wouldn’t necessarily want to befriend… but Lucca is actually a really kind person. And she’s not just kind to people she knows or had a reason to be kind to. She’s kind to people who should be her competition. I don’t know if there’s something she finds compelling about victims of scandals (my two examples of “Lucca is a kind person” are Lucca helping Alicia and Lucca helping Maia, and obviously Alicia and Maia have some significant things in common) or if she’s normally the kind who would reach out without realizing what she’s doing, though. I have a feeling she doesn’t do this too often, because anyone that’s constantly looking out for strangers is going to have at least a few friends.

(Which makes me wonder: Lucca helps Alicia right away, but only becomes her friend after months of working with each other and watching Alicia’s 7x13 breakdown. Does Lucca help Maia because she realizes she can help, because she wants to help, or because Maia reminds her of Alicia? Or all three?)

“I had a friend. Went through the same thing. Said it was hell for a few months,” Lucca says. Maia opens the door. Lucca doesn’t turn around the whole time, and when she’s done with her speech, she turns sharply and leaves.

Lucca’s speech is long, at least by the Kings’ standards. It’s also nearly identical to the speech Alicia gives her client in W101. I wish I could appreciate this more as a moment for Lucca, but it just makes me think about Alicia. To her credit, Lucca delivers the speech in a different manner than Alicia does. Alicia manages to be empathetic without getting emotional (which is, I think, why she made such a good handholder for clients—they felt her connecting with them but she still always came across as professional). Lucca is clearly sympathetic to Maia’s situation—she’s giving the speech, after all—but it kinda sounds like she’s trying to keep her tone as impersonal as David Lee’s orientation spiel, with only occasional glances (via the mirror) to let Maia know she’s a friend.  

Diane gets a case related video and it’s bad for her client.

Adrian stops by to see Diane. She seems almost too tired to talk. But then he says something interesting: “I want you to join our firm.” Diane laughs, but Adrian is serious. He offers to let Diane be their diversity hire. Heh.

Why isn’t Adrian afraid of the Rindell scandal? His firm wasn’t affected by it, because the Rindell fund “never invited black folk.”

Adrian offers Diane the opportunity to “fuck them back” for fucking her over. Why do I feel like Adrian is going to be responsible for most of the swearing on this show?

Adrian—whose office really looks like Will’s office, because I’m pretty sure it is—and Barbara fight over the offer Adrian extended to Diane.

Barbara’s concern about Diane is that “she doesn’t know her place. She’s not gonna be happy until she’s in the inner circle.” I’m not sure what new, desperate Diane looks like, but that totally describes the old, confident Diane. You don’t get to be that self-assured and content making big decisions quickly without fully believing you deserve a seat at the table.

(In the TGW Pilot, Diane had a similar suspicion about Alicia—a junior associate who doesn’t think she’s a junior associate—and that was way off base.)

Adrian argues that he and Barbara are also ambitious like that, and ambition is a good thing. Barbara’s point isn’t that ambition is bad, though: it’s that they don’t want “people who are only happy when they’re giving orders.” She calls in Lucca for backup.

Lucca’s dress has a friggin’ cat on it. I love this show’s costume department.

Lucca argues in favor of bringing Diane in because she’s a good lawyer, idealistic, and cunning. Adrian laughs at Barbara’s move backfiring on her. And now Diane’s a junior partner.

Amy is watching a sex tape. Someone’s put some generic lesbian sex tape on TMZ and is claiming it’s Maia and Amy. “This isn’t even us! This person has a tattoo!” Amy exclaims. Maia tells her to ignore it—she’s a quick study.

Diane’s in her office, looking at a picture of her and Will, when Kurt shows up.

Kurt says he doesn’t want a divorce—he “doesn’t want the door to close completely.” Is the door really open, though? “It is closed between us,” Diane states. Kurt gets a bit agitated: “Then divorce me. But I won’t do it.” I’m curious, everyone: why do you think Diane’s insisting that Kurt be the one to initiate a divorce?

“You Were Right About Everything” begins to play again. Maia and Amy are in bed getting ready to go to sleep. “My parents saw the tape,” Amy says. They don’t believe it’s not her, and that breaks my heart a little.

Diane’s back in the Lockhart/Deckler conference room. Like the first partner meeting scene, she’s standing up. She’s in control, announcing her new firm. She walks around the table on her way out, drops the bombshell that they’re going to have to agree to a $6 million payout on the police brutality case, and defiantly exits the room. “Want the door closed?” she says. She leaves before she gets the answer.

David Lee fires Maia, who’s already having a rough day (week). Maia’s returned the folio to Diane, as though to indicate that she’s giving up (Diane said the folio would force her to accomplish something that would make her feel she deserved it). When Diane goes to return it, she sees that Maia’s being fired.

As Maia leaves the firm, Howard stops her to say he’s sorry she was fired; he likes the flowers. Wait, he knows she was fired but still thinks she was in charge of the flowers? Why would that be the case?

As Diane’s packing up her office, she calls Adrian to let him know Maia’s role in the COTW. She suggests that Adrian hire Maia. This is one of those moments that seems innocent enough—Diane’s just trying to help out her goddaughter who’s going through an awful scandal—but when you think about it, Diane’s first act at the predominantly black firm that took her in when no one else would is to get her (formerly) wealthy white goddaughter a job. YMMV on this. It’s not wrong of Diane to make this suggestion, but it’s this kind of thing that, when unchecked, leads to the lack of diversity Geneva called Peter out on in W412.

Maia sits outside of the firm, staring off into space and watching a WALK sign turn to DON’T WALK. I was going to write something about how Alicia also stared at a WALK/DON’T WALK sign when she found out Will died, but apparently my memory has mixed up Alicia’s feelings after Will’s death with a visual from the scene where Prady realizes he’s lost the SA election. Don’t know what happened there. (I think I mixed up the insert of Alicia watching a mother and child cross the street with the WALK/DON’T WALK?) At any rate, the writers have used this before to symbolize an existential crisis. I think it works because it suggests that there should be movement—walk when it says walk; run when the light starts blinking; don’t get stuck at the light for another traffic cycle—when there isn’t any. Maia’s at a standstill, stuck even when she should be moving with urgency.

Diane sees Maia sitting there and approaches with the folio. “You left this,” she says. “Give it to someone who needs it. I’m done,” Maia responds. “No, you’re not. Let’s go,” Diane decides. “Where?” Maia wants to know. “Someplace,” Diane says. “Why?” Maia can’t wrap her head around this. “Because it’s not over yet,” Diane reassures her. No, it’s not. The Good Fight is just beginning.

[wordsofcleo]

The Divorce 12/2/19

Ah yes, you read it correctly. Divorce. That nasty word that nobody likes to hear. In today’s world, people get married just to have the experience. Then they realize it isn’t what they fantasized it would be, so they get that fancy piece of paperwork that cancels out the other fancy piece of paperwork, also known as “divorce”. As of today, I’ve been married for two years and five months. That will end soon enough, and yes, I will tell you why. After the brief intermission of the story of ignorance regarding the last four years of my life.

So, some far away (and a bit blurry) time ago, I found myself pondering around on a dating website called Plenty Of Fish. (Is this how every horror story goes? I’m pretty sure it does.) In case you aren’t familiar with dating websites, you have the option to set a “perimeter”. Your perimeter was how far you were willing to travel to meet someone. It could be 20 miles, 50 miles, 150 miles, or even worldwide if you were interested in long distance. Of course, the further your perimeters, the more options you have. The more people you can meet. My perimeters were only set 50 miles out, and no further. That meant that I wouldn’t have the option to meet anyone outside of a 50 mile radius. I lived in a small town in Florida, so I knew that the crowd would be limited. So, I came across this guy who I found incredibly attractive. And to be fair, he had a hysterically cheesy pickup tagline. Something like, “We can hit up the dollar menu at McDonald’s, as long as we’re together, that’s all that matters.” I kind of felt like he was a winner for saying something that damn cheesy and honest. So, I messaged him. We kicked it off quickly. Months went by, and we’d shared the mutual idea of meeting up sometime. When I asked where he was from, he replied, “Denham Springs.” I scratched my head at that one. I was familiar with my area and surrounding areas, but I hadn’t heard of Denham Springs. I figured it was some small hick town that I had not heard of. So, I let it slide. Sometime later it had been mentioned again that we should meet. I asked where Denham Springs was. He replied, “Louisiana.” I was baffled when I realized that this man was some 408 miles away from where I lived. I explained I had my radius set 50 miles out and no further. He said the same for him, so we both chucked that up to being a “universal connection”. Yeah, we looked deep into that. That’s how romance gets you, I suppose. Him and I kept in close contact for a little over a year when he decided that he would make the move to come visit me. It was November, and Thanksgiving was coming around. At this time, I’d been working hard at my job and had saved up for an old school camper to have my first “tiny home on wheels”. I had big plans to deck it out and soup it up. I had a cute lot that I rented on the beach, and it was perfect to have someone that I’d developed feelings for come along and have a private place to mingle. I was 18 years old. November 4th, 2016, he drove from Louisiana to Florida to meet me at my place. Thankfully, I had neighbors all around, so nothing weird could have happened to me. I told the guy he could stay up until Thanksgiving, and if we clicked like we did over long distance, then he could move in officially. We fell in love, and the connection was intense. A little too intense. I had dated, I had boyfriends, but this was something new and different. And it was quick. I felt like I’d fallen into a rabbit hole of heart throbbing magic goo. With that being said, things moved quickly. He proposed within 6 months of living with me, and I said yes. He asked my grandfather who had raised me if he could have his honor of marriage. My Pop’s words were, “Yes, but give it some time, and see how things play out. Never rush into anything.” To my husband, that meant yes and strictly yes. No way did he hear the other parts. So, he went ahead and proposed on the beach. All of it sounds romantic, yes? Oh it was. I loved the guy a lot. I thought he loved me. What I didn’t realize is that while I’d truly fallen deeply in love with someone whom I believed was my soul tie, they may have only been infatuated with the idea of me. The idea of a new start. The idea of moving states. The idea of starting over entirely with a stranger that he did not truly know from Adam.

Some time after he popped the question; maybe a few months, he up and left one day. Literally left me out of the blue without a trace. No note, no goodbye, no reason or rhyme. Things were great between us. I couldn’t understand what in the world I could have done wrong. My phone number was blocked. I could not reach him. Next thing I knew, his family was ringing me up telling me that he’d come back home to Louisiana. He’d told them he just couldn’t do it anymore. (I ended up hearing that a lot more than I’d like to admit). I had no explanation, nothing at all. I felt as though my soul had been ripped apart. There I was, newly engaged (without a ring or any symbol of a promise to him/our future together), and he was gone into thin air. I suffered. I cried. I fell into a deep pit of depression. A couple of months went by in my stagnant, depressed, totally lost state and he says he’s coming back. Of course I’m thrilled! I need answers, I need help, but most of all I needed my fiance back. I figured it was a screw up on his end that he was willing to fix. He certainly apologized enough. I forgave him quickly. He came back, told me about everything he did wrong and that he was “scared”, so he left. Told me everything I wanted to hear. I believed him. The biggest thing that got me was when he came back and sat me down to talk, “I realized after I left that I DO want to marry you. You are the woman I want to spend my future with” ...with tears in his big eyes. I had to believe him at that point. So, he took me to the local jewelry store to look at rings that we couldn’t afford. Not me, not him. He had already began his job hopping journey a bit, so I didn’t see myself getting a ring of any kind. I went with it anyway. See, the thing about this man is that he could charm literally anyone. He charmed me. I fell for it. He had manipulation tactics. He told the owner of the jewelry store how he had left and realized his mistakes, and melted her soul with how much he loved me and so on. So what does she do? She has me pick out the diamond that I like most (a Marquis, small but beautiful) and makes him a promise. “How about this... I see how much you love this woman, and I think your story is precious. I want to help you out. I will give you the ring in exchange of furniture moving for me and my store.” Of course, he happily agreed to move furniture in exchange for my overdue engagement ring. So, I got the ring. It was wonderful! I felt officially engaged, and we were on the right path! Soon enough, things start going badly again. He cannot hold down a job; leaves them whenever he wants without reason or warning and goes on to find another one. He burned many bridges, and it was a small town. There’s only so many corners you can run into before there are no hiding spots left. Not only was it bad, but it was embarrassing. We would do great for a short time, and then things would go haywire. He would be ecstatic in the beginning, and then he turned like a light switch. One day I was so familiar with my loving fiance, and the next day he was a stranger. Cold, emotionless, lifeless. It was a constant emotional rollercoaster. Very quickly, he’d decided that furniture moving was too good for him, and he didn’t want to partake in the original agreement. Along with everything else falling apart, it was time for him to leave again. This time I was told that he was leaving, and that I had no say so because it really was over. My main concern was the ring. That poor woman that was gracious enough to want to help! I practically begged him to stay with me, but I told him that if he did anything at all, he’d better return the ring to the woman. So I made sure that he did. And then he was off, again, back home to Louisiana. This was take two. I was certain he was never coming back again, but somehow and for some reason, I still wanted him to stay with me. I cried some more, fell into another crazy dark depression, questioned my worth, my relationship, and everything else. At that point I’d sold the camper I’d worked hard for and moved back in with my grandparents who raised me. I figured I needed time to myself, needed to reverse a little bit, and save money without lot rent on my plate. I needed to shift my focus. So I tried to do just that in the midst of the darkness. December was rolling around at that time, and I was afraid I’d be spending Christmas cold and alone without my fiance to celebrate with. He’d be some four hundred miles away, living happily with his folks doing whatever floated his boat, and I’d be stuck with nothing but sadness for the holidays. I was right. Christmas day wasn’t going to be very fulfilling for me without him, so I linked up with my good friend Justin at the time and he took me under his wing for Christmas. I drove to his house and spent the day with him and his brother into the night. It was better than being stuck, alone, with nothing. That evening on Christmas, my husband called me and requested I drive to Louisiana because he wanted to make up. His car had broken down, and he had no way back to Florida. You’d bet your ass I agreed. Never driven on the interstate, not once, but I’d be out on it early the next morning.

(In the midst of this timeline, we had been married on July 8, 2017. Given the fact I’d been left as many times as I was, a lot of the dates are foggy to me. I can’t tell you what happened when to an exact point, because it all runs together. I just have a general idea of when these things took place.)

5AM the morning after Christmas, I packed a cooler full of snacks and drinks, rushed out of the house, and made my way to the interstate. My fists were clenched to that steering wheel and a rattle of nerves inside my stomach, but I was damn determined. Even then, I was forgiving of my husband. I would quite literally have done anything for him. I had a fear of traffic, highways, and of course interstates. That’s why I’d never driven one before. But that day, none of it mattered. I needed to go see my husband, and yes, even after everything he’d done to me. I made it from Florida to Louisiana in roughly 6 hours flat. I was a speed demon; my foot was the lead that set the rubber spinning on the gravel all 408 miles. I was eventually popped off of I-12 into Denham Springs LA where I caught every damn pothole under my tire. Thanks, Louisiana. Get your shit fixed why don’t you? When I pulled up to his aunt’s house where he had lived in the guest house with his cousin for the last 3 months, my stomach churned. I was so excited to finally get things right with him. I hoped and prayed that this would be the turning point. He picked me up, spun me around like something in a movie, and we kissed. We got a hotel room and enjoyed the city for a few days, and then I had to drive back home. He and his father would repair his broken down car for the next several days, and then return to Florida. I looked forward to having him back once and for all. I have to say, that was a huge sacrifice I’d made for him; that trip to Louisiana. I was terrified, nervous, uncertain of where my relationship stood, and everything else included. But what can I say? I did it for love. Eventually, he returned to Florida as promised with his repaired vehicle, and we presumed our lives. He gave me the same talk but a bit more souped up. Again, I believed him because I wanted to believe him. I prayed, hoped, and waited very patiently. I thought, “surely it won’t be this way forever.”

A year and six months passed without my husband running off. I truly felt confident in the fact that we were never going to split again. We were doing great. He wasn’t job hopping anymore, he was more involved with me and my family, and he was all around a better man than before. I decided to use what cash I’d managed to save after selling my old camper and moving back in with my grandparents to put down on a house. No, not a literal house. I bought an empty shed shell that I had big dreams of turning into a tiny home with enough hard work and precious time. That’s another can of worms in itself that I will get into later on.

My grandfather became ill, and he helped tremendously with things involving him. That alone meant the world to me. My grandfather eventually had toes on one foot removed due to gangrene, and later on had his leg amputated. It was a bad time. Nevertheless, my husband had been very supportive and good to all of us. When my grandfather was in rehab to learn how to function with his leg and a half, my family took on the project of remodeling my grandfather’s room/bathroom. We wanted to make it handicapped accessible when he returned. We wanted his comfort. He deserved that much. My husband helped a lot with that, also. During that time and because of all the dust particles floating around at my grandparent’s house - me, my grandmother, and my husband were offered a rental right on the beach (for free) until the remodeling was mostly finished with. It was like a little vacation to us. After everything my grandfather had been through along with other stressors, it was nice to live on the beach for nearly a month. Along for the stay was my oldest dog Shelby, and my younger dog Judge. One night at the beach house, I’d driven into town to take my husband dinner (as per usual when I wasn’t working and he was). When I returned, I noticed a black blob outside on the road. I remember thinking, “Oh my god, who’s dog has been hit?” I parked my car, ran over to the road, only to see my sixteen year old poodle, Shelby, dead in the street. My grandmother had let her out on the fenced in, secured porch while I was away, and she somehow managed to squeeze out and ran down into the traffic; right where the highway was. I was destroyed. My grandmother blamed herself for a long time, but it was not her fault we had a Houdini dog. Approximately three days later, my husband left again. Yes, he left at our vacation stay on the beach. I had gone somewhere, but him and my grandmother were the only ones at the beach house. I remember the phone call to this day, “Sav, I think he’s leaving again. He took the outside stairs with all of his things, but he didn’t come say anything to me.” I rushed to the beach house to see what was going on, but he had already taken off. No, he didn’t even have the guts to tell my grandmother what he was doing. He packed up and left, telling no one, and for no reason whatsoever. Now, I will say, I could always tell when he was becoming distant. I grew to have a subconscious idea of when he was going to leave. I just never wanted to trust those warning signs. He would go from being amazing and totally involved to cold, calloused, withdrawn, and emotionless. If I had one word to describe the man, I’d call him Jekkyl and Hyde. It was night and day with him. He was a mysterious person. No one ever could understand why he did the things that he did. Not only that, but he hurt many in the process of doing them.

I was working four days a week at my job during that time, and it was hell. Most of the time I had to drag myself in and go into autopilot mode, because let’s be honest, it was getting old. STILL, somehow, I wanted to fight for him. I was making myself sick. At this point in time, I’d lost my identity. I went into a panic mode, yet I was so withdrawn within myself. I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I was literally totally numb in all ways that a human can be numb. It was disgusting. And out of total panic stricken chaos, poor coping mechanisms, and plenty of “I’m sick of his bullshit” mode, what did I do? I immediately created another dating website account. Yes, oh silly me. I ran to the total polar opposite direction of what I should have been running to. I was going to show him just how done I really was, and meet someone new. Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t looking to just move on in my life, fall in love, and be seriously involved with someone. I was looking to fill the void that he’d left me with (that’s me being honest here). I was looking for someone to meet that would make me feel somewhat whole again. And also to slightly rub it in his face. Yes, I admit that. So, I met an ex-Navy guy named Ryan. Very generous and kind man he was. He’d spent four years in the Navy, and went to work as an electrician for the Naval ships locally. He was talented and intelligent with a good sense of humor. He cared. We had a lot in common. I liked Ryan and I spent a lot of time with him. He was a gentleman. The thing is, it quickly turned into something that would never have lasted. I knew that I was still hurt over my husband, and I didn’t want to become seriously involved with someone. Before I knew it, that’s where it seemed to be going. Not only that, but it wouldn’t have worked out as a long term/serious thing. Ryan was a good guy, but he was more involved in his video games than he could be with me. That was a no, given I’d had the same experience from my husband with video game addiction. So I severed it, knowing then that it was wrong in the beginning, and I went on my way. Not long after severing ties with Ryan, my husband was contacting me once more. “Hey, I know you don’t want anything to do with me at this point, but I miss you. I would like to come home.” Can we guess what I did? Can we just guess here? Ding ding ding! You got it right. I took him back. Again.

I still remember the day I went to visit my grandfather in the rehabilitation center, and upon visiting, I had to break the news to him that my husband was coming back (again). My grandfather was a very understanding man. He wanted what was best for me, and he never wanted to see me hurt. It hurt him. But he was the type of man that when he saw me fight for something I loved and believed in, he put his pride aside and fought with me. So, he took it about how I’d expected him to. “Are you sure, girl?” And I replied, “Yes, Pop. You know what they say, third times the charm.” I was confident in that statement, but later would I discover just how wrong I was. My husband came back, actually manned up and apologized formally to my family for the person he’d been. It was the least cowardly he’d been in the entirety of our relationship. I was convinced that he had dropped the runner mentality and was stepping up to the plate. He was finally being a man! My aunt was so forgiving of the situation that she hooked him up with an awesome job (very kind owner); a job that he loved and suited him perfectly. When my grandfather came home from rehabilitation, my husband was a tremendous help. Due to my spinal injuries, and my grandmother being older and unable to pull a Superman all of the time, he was able to do a lot of the lifting and such. If my grandfather needed help moving from one place to another, my husband helped. If my grandfather needed help getting into the bed, my husband was right there. It was things like that that meant the most to me. He was helping the man who raised me. He was helping him in (what we didn’t know at the time were) his final days. He appeared a changed man. A better man. A real man.

I began to trust my husband again. He was doing all of the right things, genuinely, for once. He was showing emotions and being vulnerable with me. Not long after my grandfather came back from rehabilitation, Hurricane Michael (CAT 5) hit us here in the Panhandle of Florida. We were ground zero, unfortunately. I can write a million words describing that event, but it was absolutely devastating. That’s the shortest summary I can create at this point. My grandparents weren’t sure how they would evacuate, because my grandfather was on kidney dialysis and an amputee who got around on a Hover-Round. It wasn’t so simple to make last minute arrangements under those circumstances. My husband and I booked it ahead of time, because we weren’t taking any chances. We locked our house down (the afore mentioned project I’d started with my savings) that we had only been moved into for approximately three months at the time. Yes, we were incredibly worried that we would lose everything that we’d just worked hard for. We packed up and went to Louisiana. The plan was to visit his family while we were there, and take a detour to New Orleans - only because I’d craved to see the city for the longest time. It was a must. My grandparents weren’t able to evacuate until last minute. That scared the living hell out of me. I was afraid they may stay behind, and I may or may not ever see them again. They took off to be with some family of ours in Georgia. It was a bit saddening to be away from them, but the thing that mattered most was that we would all be away from Hurricane Michael and ultimately be in safety. They found a kidney dialysis center near Atlanta for my grandfather. My husband and I enjoyed our trip in Louisiana, but felt very fearful of what would be to come on the Panhandle. I remember standing in New Orleans, looking across the Mississippi River as the hurricane was scheduled to roll in back home, and feeling bricks in my stomach. I was terrified of what the aftermath would be like. Nevertheless, we attempted to enjoy our time away, and in safety. Yes, the aftermath was horrifying. On the drive back from visiting New Orleans, my social media was filled with photos and videos of our hometown being demolished by natural disaster. We didn’t know if our home still stood, and the same applied for my grandparents. A few days passed, and I couldn’t stand to be away from my grandparents any longer. The four of us decided to come together and meet up in Alabama, a little closer to home but not too close just yet (no one was allowed back at that point) and we stayed in a hotel together. We had to stay actively evacuated for approximately a month before we could even come home. Yes, both of our homes somehow managed to be fine. Minor damage on both. After the long dreaded return to havoc of our beaten and assaulted hometown, we responded exactly how I’d expected. It was emotional turmoil for all of us. It was a time for all of us to stick together, become warriors in the best ways we knew how, and love one another more than ever. My grandfather became more ill as the days progressed. My husband became even more loving and strong. We were picking up the pieces of a tight knitted little family. It was how it was supposed to be in hard times. Given my grandparents were one of the rare few in the area to have electricity renewed to their home, my husband and I lived there for a while, along with my mother and my siblings. It was “The Hurricane Headquarters”. Even though nearly a month had passed since Michael hit, every day afterward seemed as though it had just taken place. For a long time, no one could get gasoline. Finally, one place nearby offered gasoline. And then another. Yay, we finally had two gasoline options! Every day we had to go out and scout and rummage for food. No restaurants, no stores. They had food lines. Yes, in a short summary, it was like living in an apocalypse for a good minute. Nevertheless, we stuck together and did our best. Surprisingly, my husband didn’t run off to his sturdy and untouched home base back in Louisiana. It would have been the perfect time for him to slip out again, but alas, he did not. I was pleased at how he handled it. I was even more surprised that he stuck around. It was a god damn war zone.

My grandfather’s cancer was growing in his body in more than a couple of places, his kidney dialysis was zapping him, and he as a whole was getting worse. He was getting tired. Confused. Agitated. Pained. It hurt to see him degrading so quickly. I hurt for him. He was essentially my father; the grandfather who raised me. And after everything we’d been through with Hurricane Michael, I didn’t want to lose him. But a month after Michael on November 25, he passed away. That particular morning, my husband had been on his way to work early. My grandmother knew he had work early, and she had to call him for help with getting my grandfather in the bed. He’d been struggling and had no energy whatsoever. My grandmother couldn’t lift him. As per usual during that time span, my husband stopped by without a single complaint and lifted my grandfather right into bed. Not long after my husband left, he passed away. Yes, my husband was the last person to help him into bed. My husband got to say goodbye to him, and I did not. My husband helped lay him to rest that day, and didn’t even know that was what he was doing. But he was. I was at home asleep when my phone started buzzing viciously beside my head. I’d missed one phone call already from my grandmother. The voicemail was unexpected and ripped my heart from my chest. She’d called me first, crying, saying that she couldn’t get him to wake up and to hurry over. Naturally, I was the furthest away from her, living in the middle of nowhere. I practically fell down the stairs to race to my car, and onto my grandparents house. Some 30 miles later, losing my sanity and thinking life wasn’t real anymore, I was at the hospital where my grandfather had been transported. I met my husband, my grandmother, my mother, and the rest of my immediate family in the lobby. They’d attempted reviving my grandfather, but shortly would we get the word from the doctor that he did not make it.

I was a total mess. I’d lost my dad; the one boulder man figure in my life that taught me everything I knew and more. My husband was supposed to be my shoulder to lean on at the time. Before my Pop passed, I’d promised him had anything happen to him, I’d be the strong one. I had to take care of my grandmother first and foremost. I had to buckle up for her. That was my main concern. I went into autopilot mode and set my grieving on the back burner, because she was my main focus. The next days and weeks after his passing were absolute hell for me. My husband had never lost anyone that close to him before, so it was not familiar territory with him. I understood that. But my husband was not an emotional human. He could be when he wanted to put on a show, and it would be believable, but it would fade back to the real him in no time. An emotionless, cold, expressionless man. That was my husband. When my Pop passed away, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. At night, I would shake so uncontrollably that I could not be contained. It was like a machine had a hold on my body and was shaking me like a rag doll. Creepy, but true. Still not sure what that was, honestly. My husband would say “It’s okay” and eventually turn right over and go to sleep. I felt so alone. I felt weak. I had to be the strong one, but I felt so weak. I could not even rely on my husband for emotional support. He went from being so actively involved and somewhat emotionally vulnerable to nothing, again, that quickly. When I needed him the most. He turned. And there I was again, struggling, lost, confused, broken, and everything else under the moon, with only me myself and I to hold myself upright.

The months following my Pop’s death are just like what you’ve read prior, and can expect from my husband’s behavior, only slightly more depressing because of the things I was struggling with. In the times I seriously needed him the most, he was returning to his emotionless, cold state. Oh - but one minute he would be amazingly involved and “there” for me. Within seconds, he was expressionless and “gone”. When confronted about this switch, I was called overreactive. I was pointing out all of his flaws. I was making him out to be a horrible person. I was over exaggerating. I was this, I was that. No, I was only becoming (finally) more verbal about the switches in his personality and how it affected me. Hell, after all I’d been through, I was very much entitled to speaking up. Finally. And I did. Things became very rocky, again, and I could tell that he was reverting, again. In March, four months after the passing, my husband and I got into a serious car wreck that added to my spinal injuries. We were very lucky to be alive (given the remarks from EMS and police). For a short while, we snapped out of our “at your throat” and “eggshells” mode, and we became emotional with one another and totally appreciative and forgiving (forgiving on my end, toward him). No worries, that didn’t last very long at all. Yes, it wore off and he was back to his very cold mode again. It never did last very long at all. On August 15th, he started a new medication. He’d been on depression medication and it did well for a long time. Until he was taking the highest dosage available for a long while, and became immune to it. Because of his change in attitude and reverting to the “old him”, I suggested seeing a doctor to go over his meds. He did, and they put him on an entirely different medication. August 15. Three days later on August 18, 2019, he left me again and it was again, totally unexpected and without reason. I immediately pointed fingers at the Wellbutrin medication that he’d suddenly been put on (given the bad reviews as well), but I had to remind myself that this was nothing new. The first couple of weeks, I wanted to sue the makers of Wellbutrin. I wanted to drive the 30+ miles to confront his doctor and give them a piece of my mind. I was searching for answers and blaming some crazy manic episode triggered by psych meds. I had to remind myself, “Sav, let it go. This is nothing new. Let the man go.” I had to remember that this was not the first or second time that my significant other had left me in the dark, but the fourth time. At first, I did a lot of praying and staying in my faith. I did a lot of soul searching. I was dedicated to fighting for this man. September rolled around; my 22nd birthday landing on the 3rd. I didn’t get a text from him. It was expected, because when he left me all the times before, I never heard a word from him until he was ready to come home. I swallowed the lumps in my throat all day on my birthday and reminded myself that I’m worth more. Slowly but surely, I dropped the idea that I needed to fight for someone like this. Slowly but surely, I replayed all of the bad memories with him. I stopped recounting the very few and far between spurting moments of happiness (mostly the moments that I created for us) and began counting the bad ones. Visionaries and flashbacks filled my mind of the many nights I locked myself in the bathroom and laid on the tile floor just to get away from him in silence and cry and silently scream. Days where I leaned over the sink, looking myself in the mirror as tears fell from my eyes and wishing I were deceased so that he would be a happy man. Not only a happy man, but that it would maybe get out to the world that he was truly a piece of garbage. I hoped that if I died and the world could know of him and his character that he played, that no woman would ever be hurt by him again. I wanted it to be a message to the world. I would have sacrificed my entire life if it meant protecting another woman from the mental and emotional abuse in which I endured. Slowly but surely, I dropped the imaginary concept of “I can fight for him, and we can be happy together”. I began to, at turtle pace, find peeks of my identity again. I began to remember the things that I enjoyed, the reason I was alive, and the things I had left to accomplish in my life. With him, I saw no color, life was a drag. Things were beginning to come back to life. Slowly, but surely.

Our entire relationship didn’t make sense. I found myself digging into this deep ideology of “He’s just a broken man. We will get past this storm together.” but it was always one sided. I was fighting for something, and he wasn’t. He put on the stage act that he was fighting for me, only to come back, let it slide for a little while, and then it would wear off. Acting can only last so long before the actor breaks character. We all know that. My husband engaged in a lot of things that I wasn’t okay with. Porn addiction, gambling, spending money frivolously, being totally emotionless, having zero remorse or sympathy (until he wanted to come back home), and more. Everything that he did, and knew that was a boundary of mine that he was crossing, he never had any second thought. He did it just for him; without any regard for anyone else. Especially me. One of the times that he’d left me, he’d been working a gas station job. It wasn’t until he left that the people from his job started confronting me, asking me questions. Telling me things. For instance, I was told that he would tell the customers that he had a starving wife at home because we were broke (false) and he needed to figure out how he would provide a meal for me. So, he would get money. What did he do with that money? He took it and went directly to the lottery machines. Yes, his coworkers caught him in the act a few times. It wasn’t until he left that I’d been told things like this. The sad thing is that it didn’t shock me. The even sadder thing was that I still took him back; even after knowing things of that stature. When I begged and pleaded to get him to end his porn addiction, I was a "controlling wife”. When I found him slaughtering me with insults behind my back on social media on his phone, I began to hover more and peek more at his texts etc. Because of this, I was a “controlling wife”. When I finally gave him the dreaded ultimatum of, “Lose the porn addiction and everything else that damages our marriage or stay away for good”, I was a “controlling wife”. The best part of it all? His father and stepmother guided him in that “controlling wife” thinking. Oh yes, it came straight from them. I was controlling. Yep, so controlling I was. I was literally begging my husband to respect me when it should have never gotten that far. But I was a controlling wife. Each time that my husband left me, I was somehow the bad guy on that end. He was the almighty justified in leaving me, and I could deal with it. That was their thinking.

To this day, I’m not quite sure why I stayed and fought as long as I did. I gave many chances, and they were all burned. Had I confronted him on his behaviors or gotten angry with him, I was a nagging wife. I emasculated him. I was all of the wrong things. It was all my fault, and he could never be with me because of it. The psychology behind the entire situation picks my brain. I don’t understand why I continued to be with him the way I was, even after everything that I went through. Not once did he physically harm me, but he mentally and emotionally scarred me for life. It will take a long time to recover from. Our marriage counselor reminded me that emotional abuse like this is indeed domestic violence, and not to ever forget that. It’s just as serious, and should be taken that way. He has been incredibly supportive through all of this, as well as my friends and the most important person in my life, my grandmother. She is a true blessing from above. The woman who raised me and loved me unconditionally. I want to thank everyone who has been there for me through these times - even from the beginning when it first started happening. The divorce papers were filed December 2, 2019. It’s a hard thing to throw away four years of my life, but it’s easier knowing that I tried everything possible. I loved as hard as humanly possible. I gave my all. You can love someone as much as you want, but if they don’t love you like you love them, you have nothing. And that’s the situation I dealt with for four years of my life. Never again will I love someone so deeply and give them my all, and they can’t even come close to doing the same for me. Lesson learned.

[jamiededes]

“Sappho (/ˈsæfoʊ/; Attic Greek Σαπφώ [sapːʰɔ̌ː], Aeolic Greek Ψάπφω, Psappho [psápːʰɔː]) was a Greek lyric poet, born on the island of Lesbos. The Alexandrians included her in the list of nine lyric poets. She was born sometime between 630 and 612 BCE, and it is said that she died around 570 BCE, but little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity, has been lost; however, her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments.” [Wikipedia]

When this post originally went up a few years ago, The Poet by Day didn’t have quite the following that is does now. Hence the repost. Both poet and organization are deserving of wide audience and big applause. / J.D., June 18, 2018.

Sunday: I began my dive into Dilys Wood’s Antarctica* (Greendale Press, 2008), spending my discretionary time engaged by this collection, which includes The South Pole Inn, a novella in verse.

“I dreamt I gave you the white continent I wrapped it in white wedding wrap, embossed with silver penguins and skiis …” from Her Birthday Present in the section Love in a Freezing Climate: Four Poems

*****

“Wherever I look, the bacillus of melt weakens the floes.” from Future

DILYS WOOD is a poet, an editor and the founder (“convenor” as she might say) of the London-based Second Light Network of Women Poets (SLN), which produces the biannual ARTEMISpoetry and includes a publishing arm, Second Light Publishing.  I first encountered Dilys thanks to Myra Schneider. That award-winning poet with eleven published collections is a consultant to SLN.

While Internet and email have a way of helping to cross borders and make affinity-based connections, closing the gaps in culture and miles – in this case some 5,500 miles as the crow flies – the tools are imperfect. It’s not the same as meeting, talking and observing in person. However, when you read what people write, when they risk themselves by putting their very souls on paper, you do get to know something about their values and passions. My strongest sense of Dilys was as the quiet persistent energy behind a women’s poetry collective and an apparently indefatigable advocate for women’s right – including women over 40 – to poetic voice. 

At the point in which I first encountered Myra, Dilys and SLN, Dilys had collaborated on (mainly with Myra) four anthologies of women’s poetry. She had two collections of her own poetry published, Women Come to a Death (Databases, 1999) and Antarctica. That was, I think around 2010. Since that time, we are gifted through Dilys and Myra, Anne Stewart (poetry p f) and others on the SLN team with so many fine anthologies and magazines of women’s poetry, that I can hardly keep track. 

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Dilys is modest in presenting herself. Her Poet’s Page on SLN’s website says simply –

Dilys started writing poetry again after retiring from the Civil Service, where her jobs included being secretary of the Women’s National Commission. She shortly after founded Second Light, focussed on the needs of women reconnecting with writing after forty. Second Light Network developed into a support group and, on a small scale (though reviews suggest significant), publisher of women’s poetry. Together with her own writing (Antarctica, 2008; Women Come to a Death, Katabasis, 1997), Dilys has been the joint editor (mainly with Myra Schneider) of 4 womens poetry anthologies.

If The Poet by Day was a poem, its title would have to have the tagline after Dilys Wood. This site is not the product of collaboration and membership. Nonetheless, its commitment to sharing information on poets and poetry, including gifted if lesser-known poets, and promoting and encouraging poets who are marginalized by their gender, ethnicity, disability or age – is very definitely inspired by Dilys’ work and commitment to mature women and the work and commitment of Myra Schneider and the other SLN women as well as by my own love of poets and poetry and the whole of poesy history and culture.

This is Dilys in her own words as she “spoke” in a guest blog post here several years ago:

NEW SAPPHOS, CHALLENGES FOR WOMEN POETS

I run a network for women poets and naturally I want our members to be treated equitably, with recognition of any woman’s potential to be in the top flight of creative artists.

Some poets feel that ‘male and female he made them’ should not be an issue. I disagree because I want to celebrate and gain personal inspiration from the last fifty years. There has been a vastly increased involvement of women as students of poetry, published poets, book purchasers and consumers of ‘products’ such as poetry festivals. I also want it debated why this has not meant equality of treatment by journals.

Why do some leading journals publish fewer poems by women and use fewer women reviewers? What part is played by prejudice and what by our diffidence? Do we submit enough work and persist when submissions are rejected? Are there subtle shades of prejudice? Are we taken seriously on ‘women’s topics’ but not when writing about spiritual experience or politics?

A first step is to convince ourselves that there is no ceiling. Emily Dickinson surely lives up to the epithet ‘unique genius’? Her work is incredibly economical, dense, universal and deeply moving. She is totally original in style and thought. Her work alone ought to kill the slur that biology-based inferiority explains historical under-achievement.

So many more women have found now their voice. Let’s celebrate poets who excite us, from Emily Bronte (say) to Jorie Graham (say). We can also start thinking seriously about differences and about inflated reputations. Let’s be wary about ‘celebrity status’. This tends to narrows true appreciation. Read voraciously. Include lesser known poets and dead poets. You will be impressed by how much exciting writing is on offer.

– Dilys Wood

* “Antarctica,” Greendale Press, 2008 (all proceeds to Second Light Network funds). �5.95 through poetry p f (scroll down on the page to which this is linked)

© The New Sapphos, Dilys portrait, book cover art, Dilys Wood; © introduction, Jamie Dedes; Sapho embrassant sa lyre Jules Elie Delaunay (1828-1891), public domain

RELATED:

Antarctic, Dilys Wood (Greendale Press, 2008), reviewed by Myra Schneider, special for The Poet by Day

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Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication, currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

* The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

POET, TEACHER, INSPIRATION: Dilys Wood and the Latter-day Saphos "Sappho (/ˈsæfoʊ/; Attic Greek Σαπφώ , Aeolic Greek Ψάπφω, Psappho ) was a Greek lyric poet, born on the island of Lesbos.

[aion-rsa]

How Star Wars: Rogue Squadron Could Reboot the Classic Legends Stories

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In the mid-1990s, the coolest, most hardcore Star Wars thing you could get into was the nitty-gritty world of Rogue Squadron. From the X-Wing novels by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston to the ongoing Rogue Squadron comics published by Dark Horse Comics to the iconic 1996 video game for the Nintendo 64, the Rogue Squadron storyline explored a corner of the Star Wars universe only teased in the Original Trilogy.

Focusing on an elite squadron of Rebel (and later New Republic) starfighter pilots, the X-Wing and Rogue Squadron stories were not only like Top Gun in space but also deep dives into what it would be like to work as an X-wing pilot 24/7. Rogue Squadron stories were pure fantasy fulfillment for kids who ever imagined themselves sitting in a cockpit during the Death Star trench run or the Battle of Endor.

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

Now that Patty Jenkins is set to direct a big-screen version of Rogue Squadron, ‘90s Star Wars fans are about to get exactly what we’ve wanted for a very long time, but the rest of the fandom should be pumped, too. After all, the adventures of Rogue Squadron are a classic part of the DNA of Star Wars.

For fans who are still frustrated about the de-canonization of the old Expanded Universe, which is now known as Legends continuity, the existence of Rogue Squadron is cause for celebration alone. When the title Rogue One was announced in March 2015, many of us — including Stackpole himself — celebrated prematurely, believing that this film would herald the arrival of the beloved starfighter team, and maybe even a cameo appearance from Wedge Antilles. And while Rogue One did feature the return of Gold Leader and some other star-pilot greats from A New Hope, it wasn’t a Rogue Squadron movie at all.

But if Lucasfilm is calling this movie Rogue Squadron, then the studio must mean it this time, and we might even get some version of the classic Legends stories to boot. Recently, The Mandalorian brought back the Dark Troopers from the game Dark Forces, and also inched one-step closer to rebooting the famous Thrawn Trilogy. Rogue Squadron could, arguably, head in the same direction.

Even if this version of Rogue Squadron exists in a different time frame than Luke’s Rogues or Wedge’s Rogues, some version of those adventures will almost certainly be referenced, since the reason Disney is making a Rogue Squadron movie is 100 percent connected to the popularity of the Legends stories. Judging by what’s going on in The Mandalorian and Jenkins’ movie, injecting more of the pre-Disney lore into the current canon is clearly in the works.

So, what’s at the core of the Rogue Squadron storyline? In all versions of Star Wars canon, Luke Skywalker forms Rogue Squadron with Wedge Antilles after the Battle of Yavin. Basically, Rogue Squadron replaced what used to be Red Squadron.

In The Empire Strikes Back, we see Rogue Squadron primarily during the Battle of Hoth. This is slightly hilarious because in the only onscreen appearance of Rogue Squadron, everyone is flying airspeeders over land, not X-wings in space. And yet, when we think of Rogue Squadron, we correctly think of X-wings.

This is why there’s an X-wing on the Lucasfilm logo for Rogue Squadron and why Patty Jenkins confidently strides toward an X-wing fighter in a short video introducing the movie. In the video, she also discusses how her real-life fighter pilot father inspired her to “one day make the greatest fighter pilot movie of all time.”

So, we’ve got X-wings. But do we need Luke or Wedge, too? Possibly not. In fact, it sounds like the movie takes place decades after Luke and Wedge first formed the squadron to fight the Empire. According to the movie’s official tagline, “the story will introduce a new generation of starfighter pilots as they earn their wings and risk their lives in a boundary-pushing, high-speed thrill-ride, and move the saga into the future era of the galaxy.”

A new generation that’ll move the saga into the future era of the galaxy implies that Rogue Squadron is set to explore the pilots active after the Sequel Trilogy, although that could be open to interpretation. That said, Legends also set a precedent for a new generation of pilots who took up the Rogue mantle 30 years after Luke and Wedge. In The New Jedi Order books (some of which were written by Stackpole), ace pilot Gavin Darklighter led Rogue Squadron, which also included Han and Leia’s daughter Jaina, during the war against the Yuuzhan Vong.

The New Jedi Order series in Legends happened relatively around the same time as the Sequel Trilogy in Disney canon, so it’s possible the new movie could be rebooting some aspects of that part of the classic EU timeline. With the Final Order defeated in The Rise of Skywalker, could a new threat to the galaxy be the reason another generation of Rogue Squadron has to take flight for the Republic?

Read more

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By Megan Crouse

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By John Saavedra

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

A fresh, new team of characters has always been at the heart of the Rogue Squadron stories, too. Part of the thrill of the Stackpole books was seeing Wedge put together an elite team of star pilots. The only legacy characters who really had a big impact on the X-Wing novels and Rogue Squadron comics were Wedge, Mon Mothma, and Admiral Ackbar. Essentially, Wedge became a side character while Allston and Stackpole developed the series’ original cast.

The team Wedge created was the thing that kept you coming back for more installments. In fact, because the Rogue Squadron comics took place in a different timeline from the X-Wing novels, you actually got multiple line-ups of the squadron. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Tycho Celchu or Corran Horn need to appear in the Rogue Squadron movie at all. The basic setup of X-Wing and Rogue Squadron allows the Star Wars franchise to bring in new characters all the time.

The galaxy always needs new star-pilots, and the promise of Rogue Squadron is to give us a movie that actually delivers on the title Star Wars with the right mix of nostalgia and freshness. Star Wars is inherently nostalgic by design, but thankfully, because it can bring in so many new characters, Rogue Squadron is oddly forward-facing, too.

Rogue Squadron will hit theaters on Christmas 2023.

The post How Star Wars: Rogue Squadron Could Reboot the Classic Legends Stories appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3m9kUL9

[euroman1945-blog]

The Daily Tulip

The Daily Tulip – News From Around The World

Thursday 14th June 2018

Good Morning Gentle Reader….  We have arrived in our summer pattern of weather in the south of Spain, mild temperatures at night and from now, progressively getting warmer in the day time.. June, July, August and September bring the heat and sunshine that Spain is the resort of choice for many families in Europe and recently China and japan, but Bella and I don’t see many people let alone people from China and Japan at 4:00am so we wander the streets alone, just an old man and his friend…

BANGOR UNI TEAM TACKLES TOAD INVASION OF MADAGASCAR…. An invasive species of Asian toad could devastate wildlife on Madagascar, according to biologists at Bangor University. They are part of an international team which says the toad's poisonous skin will kill animals preying on them. It is thought they only arrived on the African island around 2010 as "stowaways" on ships. South-east Asian predators have evolved immunity to the toxin, which animals in the closed Madagascan ecosystem lack. Whilst the toads are yet to have a major impact, the team's study has confirmed that all but one of Madagascar's native predators lack the gene which renders the toxin harmless.

SOUTH AFRICAN COMPANY APOLOGISES FOR SEXIST BEER CAMPAIGN…. A South African company has apologised for the branding of its new range of craft beers, which sparked an outcry, especially among women. Vale Bru ran a marketing campaign for the beers with names such as Filthy Brunette‚ Easy Blonde‚ Raven Porra and Ripe Redhead. Easy Blonde came with the tagline: "All your friends have already had her". After being criticised for being sexist, the company promised to remove the labels and names. The social media campaign advertised Filthy Brunette as: "When gushing and moist are used to describe something‚ then you know." While the Raven Porra was described as, "a porter with the best head in town". According to South Africa's Times Live, Porra is a derogatory term for someone of Portuguese origin. Thandi Guilherme, author of the platform Craft Geek, wrote on Instagram that Vale Bru "should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves. Crass, sexist, misogynistic branding and labelling". The Johannesburg-based company issued its first apology, which has since been deleted, on Instagram. It said: "Our attempt at making you‚ and ourselves‚ uncomfortable‚ worked. However‚ we never meant to belittle or degrade you." "If those keyboard crusaders want to carry on‚ feel free," it added. Ms Guilherme later wrote on her blog: "#Metoo, Rape culture and Trump's 'locker room' misogyny are not funny. These are real problems that society is trying to deal with. Don't go there." "I understand that sex sells‚ but these names don't hint at respectful sex," wrote South African blogger Lucy Corne. "Maybe they should have asked themselves whether these are things that they would appreciate people saying about their little sister." In a new apology, Vale Bru said it took "full accountability for our actions and we plan on making things right." "We were insensitive and wrong, for which we apologise unreservedly," it added.

FLORIDA ALLIGATOR ATTACK: DOG-WALKER FEARED DEAD…. A dog-walker who was attacked by an alligator in the US state of Florida is believed to have been killed by the reptile, state wildlife officials say. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) says Shizuka Matsuki was bitten by a 12.5 ft (3.8m) alligator. A necropsy was performed on the reptile after it was captured. It dragged Ms Matsuki, 47, into a lake in the town of Davie, 25 miles (40km) north of Miami, a witness said. The incident occurred at about 09:45 (13:45 GMT) on Friday. "The FWC believes that the victim is deceased and we will continue recovery efforts on the lake with local authorities," the agency said in a statement. "This tragedy is heartbreaking for everyone involved," the FWC added. Local media earlier reported that officers found a dog on a leash but no signs of the woman at Silver Lakes Rotary Nature Park. "Divers are searching," Davie Police Maj Dale Engle was quoted as saying by the Sun Sentinel newspaper. "Her dogs won't leave the pond. One of her dogs got bit by the gator."

CLIMATE CHANGE: POPE URGES ACTION ON CLEAN ENERGY…. Pope Francis has said climate change is a challenge of "epochal proportions" and that the world must convert to clean fuel. "Civilisation requires energy, but energy use must not destroy civilisation," he said. He was speaking to a group of oil company executives at the end of a two-day conference in the Vatican. Firms present included ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Norway's Equinor and Pemex of Mexico. Modern society with its "massive movement of information, persons and things requires an immense supply of energy", he told the gathering. "But that energy should also be clean, by a reduction in the systematic use of fossil fuels," he said. "Our desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to the undesired effect of a spiral of extreme climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environments and increased levels of poverty." The world needed to come up with an energy mix that combated pollution, eliminated poverty and promoted social justice, he added. As many as one billion people still lack electricity, he said. Under Pope Francis' leadership, the church has moved to confront the business world on a range of subjects from poverty to tax havens and complex financial securities.

AIRBNB CANCELS THOUSANDS OF BOOKINGS IN JAPAN…. Travelling to Japan in June? If you've made a booking with Airbnb, you may have to find alternative accommodation. The online home-sharing giant has had to cancel thousands of reservations after Japan's government put in place a new law around home-sharing. The law regulates Airbnb's most popular destination market in the Asia Pacific region. Airbnb said changes to the guidance around its implementation meant reservations would now be affected. Under the new law, hosts are required to register their listing and display their licence number by 15 June to remain active. But the Japanese government said on 1 June that any host without a licence number had to cancel upcoming reservations that were booked before 15 June. Airbnb said it would therefore cancel any reservation made by a guest arriving between 15 June and 19 June at a listing in Japan that does not currently have a licence. "We know this stinks - and that's an understatement," Airbnb said. "Japan is an incredible country to visit and we want to help our guests deal with this extraordinary disruption." Airbnb also said it had set up a $10m fund to help those incurring any additional expenses related to having to make alternative travel plans because of cancellations.

Well Gentle Reader I hope you enjoyed our look at the news from around the world this, morning… …

Our Tulips today are from the Winner of Plant and Flower Close Up - Rebecca Reeve - Tulips at the Philly Flower Show

A Sincere Thank You for your company and Thank You for your likes and comments I love them and always try to reply, so please keep them coming, it's always good fun, As is my custom, I will go and get myself another mug of "Colombian" Coffee and wish you a safe Thursday 14th June 2018 from my home on the southern coast of Spain, where the blue waters of the Alboran Sea washes the coast of Africa and Europe and the smell of the night blooming Jasmine and Honeysuckle fills the air…and a crazy old guy and his dog Bella go out for a walk at 4:00 am…on the streets of Estepona…

All good stuff....But remember it’s a dangerous world we live in

Be safe out there…

Robert McAngus

[rebeccahpedersen]

Greed Is Good……Right?

TorontoRealtyBlog

The 1980’s were said to be the “Decade of Greed,” and if Hollywood’s portrayal was any indication, those of us watching now in hindsight would have no reason to believe it was anything to the contrary.

Market regulations, consumer interactions, and the way commerce is transacted may have changed since then, but greed still exists.

The real estate market, as many of you would argue, is ground zero.

Let me tell you a story about greed, that still after having thought about this for weeks, and written the entire blog below, makes absolutely, positively, no sense…

“Greed Is Good”

It makes a great tagline, and looks cool in that quasi-Gothic font next to a young Michael Douglas, who blends into the background darkness in a way that Oliver Stone seems to see the whole world.

Wall Street opened my eyes as a young man, since I actually never watched it until I was in third year university, taking business, dreaming of becoming a caviar-eating, lear-jet flying, financier.

As cool as the movie was, and as great as the one-liners were, I actually found the movie to be quite depressing.

Unlike most people my age, I didn’t think Michael Douglas’ character was anything to aspire to.

Yes, he was rich and powerful, and if he didn’t earn the respect of his peers, he certainly went out and took it.

But like most people who does what he does, he eventually fell hard, as did his protege, Bud Fox, who had to rat out his mentor in order to save his own skin.

Many young people watch Wall Street and say, “That’s exactly what I want to do!”

The movie had the exact opposite effect on me.

I feared an existence like that of Bud Fox, who was only with a woman who liked him because he was rich, and scoffed at the idea of “getting by” in something less than a top-end Penthouse apartment.

And by the end of the movie, I began to wonder if the take-away was that hard work alone isn’t enough to be successful; you also have to lie, cheat, and steal.

The timing of my first viewing of this film also coincided with the tech-boom of 1999, which led to a spectacular bust.

And I began to sour on the world of high-stakes trading, and look elsewhere as far as school, and career, was concerned.

That one line in the movie though always stuck out at me: Greed Is Good.

I never quite understood it.

I think that most people who play with fire, get burned.

I believe in taking risks, I believe in being different, I believe in thinking outside the box, and I think combined with hard work and sacrifice, success – and wealth, is achieveable.

But at what cost?  That’s where every individual has his or her own set of ideas and ideals.

And the whole “Greed is good” mentality never motivated me, because I didn’t think it was a means to a successful end.

There’s no shortage of greed in the real estate market, as many of you can attest to.

Whether you were on the giving or receiving end of greed, we all know that it happens as often as properties go up for sale.

But there are different measures of greed, and different motivations.

I’m not sure what’s worse: greed on a smaller scale, or a larger one.

I have clients who are relocating to Toronto, and they are the very definition of “executives;” a word that gets thrown around a lot.

Executive rentals, executive tenants – what does this all mean?

Well, my clients are actually executives, who have extremely high-paying jobs of great stature, can afford the “luxury rentals” that other people scoff at, and would be the absolute spitting image of a “Triple-A Tenant.”

We were looking at two penthouse condos in a luxury condo downtown, but before I took my clients for a viewing, I called the listing agent to clarify something in the broker’s remarks of the MLS listing.

The Condo was listed for $8,000 per month, and then decreased in price to $7,125 per month.

However, the following note appeared in the MLS listing:

Tenant Responsible For Base Rent of $7,125 Per Month Plus Condominium Maintenance Fees Of $875 Per Month = $8,000 Per Month.

So first of all, the unit wasn’t really decreased in price.  All they did was lower the asking price for the rent, and then build in the maintenance fee.

But more importantly, and as I asked the listing agent, “Who the hell expects a tenant to pay the maintenance fees?”

“I’ve done a hundred rentals,” I told her, “And I’ve never had a tenant pay for the maintenance fees.”

Surprisingly, she said, “I know, neither have I.”

So what was the issue here,  I wondered.  It didn’t make any sense.

“There’s something you have to know about these condos, and the landlords,” the listing agent told me.

“They’re smarter than you and I.”

Interesting.

I knew who the landlords were, since a quick Google search provided ample results.  They were two young guys in their late 30’s, early 40’s; sons of a very wealthy and prominent Toronto family.

“They’re incredible businessmen,” the listing agent told me.

“Allow me to explain,” she said, as I took a seat in my office chair and got ready for an earful.

“My clients aren’t a fan of the maximum 1.5% rent increases, as I would imagine everybody else in the Province aren’t either.”

“So they’re hedging their bet, you see,” she explained.

“If they were to only raise the rent 1.5%, that’s a pittance on $7,000.”

“But if the condo maintenance fees went up significantly, say, 6% next year, and the tenants are paying for that, then my guys are getting a 1.5% increase on $7,125, but they’re not having to pay the 6% increase on the $875 per month.”

“Genius,” she told me, as I could feel her pride through the phone.

“I don’t understand,” I told her.

She began to explain it to me again, and I stopped her: “No, no, no, I mean I understand the math, that’s not my problem.  I mean I don’t understand the purpose,” I told her.

She began to explain, the same thing, again, and I said, “Do you mind if I put you on hold for just one second?”

She said it wasn’t a problem.

So I got out my trust calculator – same CASIO that I’ve had since Grade 9, and did some really complex calculations.

If the unit rented for a flat $8,000 per month, and landlords raised the rent of the $8,000 per month condo by 1.5%, that would be $120, and thus a new rent of $8,120.  With the landlords paying the $875 per month maintenance fees, the net rent would be $7,245.

If the landlords rented the unit for $7,125 per month, and the tenants paid the maintenance fees, the 1.5% increase on the rent applied would be $7,232.

However, let’s say the maintenance fees went up 6% in the first scenario – from $875 per month to $927.50.

That means the $8,120 per month rent, minus the $927.50, would result in a net rent of $7,192.50.

And that is what the landlords are trying to guard against, you see!

You can play with those numbers all you like.  If fees went up, say, 10% in a year, then the net rent would only be $7,157.50.

So if you’re like me, right now, you’re thinking, “Who the F&$K cares?”

Why in the world are these jackasses monkeying around for $48 per month?

I came back on the phone and told the agent, “If I’m doing this correctly, it seems your ‘genius’ clients are looking to take on a downside risk of $13 per month, in the event that fees don’t increase, but an upside risk that is…………..infinite.”

That was sarcasm, in case you weren’t playing along.

But the agent was!  She said, “EXACTLY!”

“So if maintenance fees went up, like, ten percent in the first year of the lease, your clients stand to gain a net of $87.50 per month.”

“Right on,” she said.

“Can I ask you an honest question,” I asked her.

“Sure,” she said.

“How fucking bored are your clients?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone, and eventually she said, “Come again?”

“Your clients’ family probably has a net worth in the $50 – $60 Million range.  Your clients could stop working today and live off the interest of their sizeable net worths.  So why in the world are they messing around over twenty-five goddam dollars per month?”

“Because,” she told me, “They’re genius businessmen!”

I don’t think she and I were on the same page.

“These guys are really tough negotiators,” she told me.  “This is the way they do all their business deals.”

It made no sense to me.

And it was the greatest combination of greed and stupidity that I had seen in such a long time.

These guys, with their two penthouse condos, looking for $8,000 per month tenants, were getting creative with all their big-deal-business-acumen, trying to squeeze out an extra $10, $20, $30 per month in rent, which would represent a gain of less than one-half of one-percent.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, it’s that people don’t like working with assholes, and don’t – when they can avoid it.

I told my clients the story, gave them the lowdown on how the rent would break down, and threw them an ever-so-gentle opinion of mine, based on what I’ve said above.

We went and saw the unit, and it was fantastic.

But in the end, nothing would be worth dealing with those two knuckleheads as landlords.

And I’m not judging a book by its cover here; that one situation with how they want to deal with the rent, is chapter and verse of what to expect moving forward.

If this was my condo, I’d be looking for Triple-A tenants who would be easy to manage, quiet, respectful, low-key, and who would stay for another year, and another after that.

If this was my condo, I’d do everything possible to ensure I didn’t have a month’s vacancy, since losing $8,000 in rent would blow my entire return.

But it’s not my condo.  It’s a condo that belongs to somebody that is either really bored, and needs a hobby, or somebody that would cut off his nose to spite his face.

These guys have more money than the know what to do with, and thus maybe they’re okay losing $8,000 per month, to get a “victory” in having a tenant agree to their “genius” idea, that showed what a “tough negotiator” they could be.

But you know what?  I don’t think it’s the latter.

I think that greed can get in the way of smart decision-making; not often, but often enough.

And this is a case where these guys, despite all their wealth, and all their business acumen, aren’t thinking about the long-game.  They’re letting greed, and ego, get in the way, and massively inflating their downside, all in search of a limited upside.

Greed is good, right?

Not in this case.  Not a chance…

The post Greed Is Good……Right? appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

Originated from http://ift.tt/2tCzbpk

[haackhaus]

Branding: The Art of Perception

*Young lady or old woman?

I was fortunate very early in my career to learn a great lesson about a simple, yet extraordinary phenomenon called perception. I had been out of college for about two years and was still honing my craft as a copywriter. I had even become confident enough in my abilities to add that title to my resume without ever having gone to … Portfolio School (gasp!).

I was lucky. But to tell this story fully, I must, indeed, go back two more years. I landed an internship at a good agency just a few months after graduating from a state university in the generic concentration of Advertising. The internship wasn’t on the creative side. I was actually mostly working on research and coffee runs for the account team. But, when I told them why I was really there, they gave me a shot, I impressed them with a few headlines, and the rest is history.

Now, back to the original story. It’s already starting to feel a little too Midsummer Night’s Dream in here, anyway. I was a full-fledged copywriter with a couple of years and recommendations under my belt, and a friend of mine was interested in putting my skills to use. This person worked at another advertising agency. This person was not a copywriter. But, this person had been asked to write a newsletter for one of their clients. This person, in turn, asked for my help.

I wouldn’t be paid for this, because this person wanted their agency to think that they wrote the piece, thus “wowing” their clients and superiors, winning the Most Awesome award and being carried out of the office on the shoulders of their peers for having the amazing ability to both write and account exec (Ya, I’m using “account exec” as a verb).

I didn’t mind. Hell, at that stage in my career, any chance to hone my skill was an opportunity I would jump at. Now, of course, I still would, but there’s usually going to be a price tag attached.

So I wrote it. It took me about five hours. But I wrote it. And guess what happened. This person’s superiors hated it.The page bled in edits. Red replaced black as the majority. Scribble superseded Times New Roman.

This person asked me, “What happened?” I said I didn’t know. I thought it was good. Maybe not my greatest work ever (Does anyone love writing newsletters, after all?), but it certainly should have done the job for a newsletter that would likely be read by a subscribing audience of no more than seven.

So the edits were made. The superiors were satisfied when few of the original words on the document remained. The clients were satisfied when the superiors advocated it. And everyone was happy. Except, this was a monthly newsletter. This process was going to come around in another 30 days. And what then?

Well, I had done some freelance work for this agency in the past. I was currently working at an internal marketing department for a very niche product, so there was absolutely no conflict of interest … Just in case you were wondering. Ironically, the agency reached out to me the following month to write the succeeding five page newsletter. The same young copywriter that they had thrashed and stained in red the month prior. I hesitantly agreed, knowing that this was an opportunity to learn and grow. And make some extra money, of course.

So I wrote it. Again. And again, it took me about five hours. And you know what happened this time? They loved it. A resounding, unanimous acceptance, without edits, of the golden god of newsletters. It was perfection in local publishing. It was heaven on paper. I could hear the applause from my office on the other side of the city. No edits needed. No changes required. A masterpiece. They showed my friend, the one who had initially solicited my help, stating “This is how a newsletter is supposed to be written.”

I am sure that a small part of that person wanted to spill the beans, if not walk from superior to superior kicking everyone in the  “beans”. But I think at that moment, this person realized the same lesson I learned when I got the news. Perception means a whole hell of a lot.

I pride myself on learning from past mistakes, writing or otherwise. But there is no way that over the course of one month, I could have gone from writing a newsletter that was about one more edit away from becoming garbage, to a beacon on which all other newsletter should strive to resemble. The decision-makers of this ad agency saw the first newsletter and were prepared to see a flood of writing errors and missed voice attributes, because it was coming from someone without specific experience in copywriting. And because that is what they expected, or perceived, they found the errors they were looking for, and then some. A self-fulfilling prophecy.

When they looked at the second newsletter, they expected a certain level of greatness. One, because it was coming from a copywriter, not one of their Account people. And two, because they paid a freelance fee for it, and wanted to validate their expense.

Perception means everything in the world of consumer marketing and advertising, as well as B2B. What does your customer think of your company and does what you are saying about your company match up with their perception? “Think Different” worked for Apple, because they had always portrayed themselves as the outlier to the corporate big brother of IBM and Microsoft. “Just Do It” worked for Nike because their customers are athletes, and that’s exactly what they want to do, and need to be told sometimes. But if you were just another clothing store on the corner, “Just Do It” and “Think Different” would make no sense, and a pair of the greatest taglines ever would have been wasted.

I’ll give you another example. Stephen King, the world’s most renowned horror author of all time was rejected by over 30 publishers before someone decided to back Carrie. King went on to a successful career that continues to horrify and captivate audiences, from paperback to big screen to Amazon Kindle tablets. But for a brief period, King wanted to find out if he really was as good as people thought he was, or if it had all just been a fluke, and was now being carried by his name alone, and not his quality. So, he penned novels under the name Richard Bachman. The secret didn’t last long, but King found, much to his delight, that he sold nearly as well, and the quality of his writing was, at least in large part, the reason for his continued success. But, it was the perception of his fans that he wanted to test. And it could have just as easily failed. If it had, it would have proven my point in a much stronger fashion, but you get where I’m going with it.

Cool begets cooler. Smart begets smarter. Fun begets excitement. Building perception in a forward direction is like rolling a rock downhill. As long as your product, and the perception of your consumer matches up, your success will be imminent (as long as that perception isn’t shitty).

Shifting perception is another beast altogether. Volvo is still considered the safest line of automobiles in the world, when, in fact, they are no longer even ranked in the top ten, as far as safety is concerned. But I won’t get into that right now. Shifting perception, as I said, is a whole other beast.

Just remember the importance of perception. It affects everything. You. Your brand(s). Your work. Your friends. Your family. Find a way to use it to your advantage, and realize when it is working against you. Once you take perception into account, you’ll find a lot of formerly unanswerable questions become much simpler.

[rebeccahpedersen]

Greed Is Good……Right?

TorontoRealtyBlog

The 1980’s were said to be the “Decade of Greed,” and if Hollywood’s portrayal was any indication, those of us watching now in hindsight would have no reason to believe it was anything to the contrary.

Market regulations, consumer interactions, and the way commerce is transacted may have changed since then, but greed still exists.

The real estate market, as many of you would argue, is ground zero.

Let me tell you a story about greed, that still after having thought about this for weeks, and written the entire blog below, makes absolutely, positively, no sense…

“Greed Is Good”

It makes a great tagline, and looks cool in that quasi-Gothic font next to a young Michael Douglas, who blends into the background darkness in a way that Oliver Stone seems to see the whole world.

Wall Street opened my eyes as a young man, since I actually never watched it until I was in third year university, taking business, dreaming of becoming a caviar-eating, lear-jet flying, financier.

As cool as the movie was, and as great as the one-liners were, I actually found the movie to be quite depressing.

Unlike most people my age, I didn’t think Michael Douglas’ character was anything to aspire to.

Yes, he was rich and powerful, and if he didn’t earn the respect of his peers, he certainly went out and took it.

But like most people who does what he does, he eventually fell hard, as did his protege, Bud Fox, who had to rat out his mentor in order to save his own skin.

Many young people watch Wall Street and say, “That’s exactly what I want to do!”

The movie had the exact opposite effect on me.

I feared an existence like that of Bud Fox, who was only with a woman who liked him because he was rich, and scoffed at the idea of “getting by” in something less than a top-end Penthouse apartment.

And by the end of the movie, I began to wonder if the take-away was that hard work alone isn’t enough to be successful; you also have to lie, cheat, and steal.

The timing of my first viewing of this film also coincided with the tech-boom of 1999, which led to a spectacular bust.

And I began to sour on the world of high-stakes trading, and look elsewhere as far as school, and career, was concerned.

That one line in the movie though always stuck out at me: Greed Is Good.

I never quite understood it.

I think that most people who play with fire, get burned.

I believe in taking risks, I believe in being different, I believe in thinking outside the box, and I think combined with hard work and sacrifice, success – and wealth, is achieveable.

But at what cost?  That’s where every individual has his or her own set of ideas and ideals.

And the whole “Greed is good” mentality never motivated me, because I didn’t think it was a means to a successful end.

There’s no shortage of greed in the real estate market, as many of you can attest to.

Whether you were on the giving or receiving end of greed, we all know that it happens as often as properties go up for sale.

But there are different measures of greed, and different motivations.

I’m not sure what’s worse: greed on a smaller scale, or a larger one.

I have clients who are relocating to Toronto, and they are the very definition of “executives;” a word that gets thrown around a lot.

Executive rentals, executive tenants – what does this all mean?

Well, my clients are actually executives, who have extremely high-paying jobs of great stature, can afford the “luxury rentals” that other people scoff at, and would be the absolute spitting image of a “Triple-A Tenant.”

We were looking at two penthouse condos in a luxury condo downtown, but before I took my clients for a viewing, I called the listing agent to clarify something in the broker’s remarks of the MLS listing.

The Condo was listed for $8,000 per month, and then decreased in price to $7,125 per month.

However, the following note appeared in the MLS listing:

Tenant Responsible For Base Rent of $7,125 Per Month Plus Condominium Maintenance Fees Of $875 Per Month = $8,000 Per Month.

So first of all, the unit wasn’t really decreased in price.  All they did was lower the asking price for the rent, and then build in the maintenance fee.

But more importantly, and as I asked the listing agent, “Who the hell expects a tenant to pay the maintenance fees?”

“I’ve done a hundred rentals,” I told her, “And I’ve never had a tenant pay for the maintenance fees.”

Surprisingly, she said, “I know, neither have I.”

So what was the issue here,  I wondered.  It didn’t make any sense.

“There’s something you have to know about these condos, and the landlords,” the listing agent told me.

“They’re smarter than you and I.”

Interesting.

I knew who the landlords were, since a quick Google search provided ample results.  They were two young guys in their late 30’s, early 40’s; sons of a very wealthy and prominent Toronto family.

“They’re incredible businessmen,” the listing agent told me.

“Allow me to explain,” she said, as I took a seat in my office chair and got ready for an earful.

“My clients aren’t a fan of the maximum 1.5% rent increases, as I would imagine everybody else in the Province aren’t either.”

“So they’re hedging their bet, you see,” she explained.

“If they were to only raise the rent 1.5%, that’s a pittance on $7,000.”

“But if the condo maintenance fees went up significantly, say, 6% next year, and the tenants are paying for that, then my guys are getting a 1.5% increase on $7,125, but they’re not having to pay the 6% increase on the $875 per month.”

“Genius,” she told me, as I could feel her pride through the phone.

“I don’t understand,” I told her.

She began to explain it to me again, and I stopped her: “No, no, no, I mean I understand the math, that’s not my problem.  I mean I don’t understand the purpose,” I told her.

She began to explain, the same thing, again, and I said, “Do you mind if I put you on hold for just one second?”

She said it wasn’t a problem.

So I got out my trust calculator – same CASIO that I’ve had since Grade 9, and did some really complex calculations.

If the unit rented for a flat $8,000 per month, and landlords raised the rent of the $8,000 per month condo by 1.5%, that would be $120, and thus a new rent of $8,120.  With the landlords paying the $875 per month maintenance fees, the net rent would be $7,245.

If the landlords rented the unit for $7,125 per month, and the tenants paid the maintenance fees, the 1.5% increase on the rent applied would be $7,232.

However, let’s say the maintenance fees went up 6% in the first scenario – from $875 per month to $927.50.

That means the $8,120 per month rent, minus the $927.50, would result in a net rent of $7,192.50.

And that is what the landlords are trying to guard against, you see!

You can play with those numbers all you like.  If fees went up, say, 10% in a year, then the net rent would only be $7,157.50.

So if you’re like me, right now, you’re thinking, “Who the F&$K cares?”

Why in the world are these jackasses monkeying around for $48 per month?

I came back on the phone and told the agent, “If I’m doing this correctly, it seems your ‘genius’ clients are looking to take on a downside risk of $13 per month, in the event that fees don’t increase, but an upside risk that is…………..infinite.”

That was sarcasm, in case you weren’t playing along.

But the agent was!  She said, “EXACTLY!”

“So if maintenance fees went up, like, ten percent in the first year of the lease, your clients stand to gain a net of $87.50 per month.”

“Right on,” she said.

“Can I ask you an honest question,” I asked her.

“Sure,” she said.

“How fucking bored are your clients?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone, and eventually she said, “Come again?”

“Your clients’ family probably has a net worth in the $50 – $60 Million range.  Your clients could stop working today and live off the interest of their sizeable net worths.  So why in the world are they messing around over twenty-five goddam dollars per month?”

“Because,” she told me, “They’re genius businessmen!”

I don’t think she and I were on the same page.

“These guys are really tough negotiators,” she told me.  “This is the way they do all their business deals.”

It made no sense to me.

And it was the greatest combination of greed and stupidity that I had seen in such a long time.

These guys, with their two penthouse condos, looking for $8,000 per month tenants, were getting creative with all their big-deal-business-acumen, trying to squeeze out an extra $10, $20, $30 per month in rent, which would represent a gain of less than one-half of one-percent.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, it’s that people don’t like working with assholes, and don’t – when they can avoid it.

I told my clients the story, gave them the lowdown on how the rent would break down, and threw them an ever-so-gentle opinion of mine, based on what I’ve said above.

We went and saw the unit, and it was fantastic.

But in the end, nothing would be worth dealing with those two knuckleheads as landlords.

And I’m not judging a book by its cover here; that one situation with how they want to deal with the rent, is chapter and verse of what to expect moving forward.

If this was my condo, I’d be looking for Triple-A tenants who would be easy to manage, quiet, respectful, low-key, and who would stay for another year, and another after that.

If this was my condo, I’d do everything possible to ensure I didn’t have a month’s vacancy, since losing $8,000 in rent would blow my entire return.

But it’s not my condo.  It’s a condo that belongs to somebody that is either really bored, and needs a hobby, or somebody that would cut off his nose to spite his face.

These guys have more money than the know what to do with, and thus maybe they’re okay losing $8,000 per month, to get a “victory” in having a tenant agree to their “genius” idea, that showed what a “tough negotiator” they could be.

But you know what?  I don’t think it’s the latter.

I think that greed can get in the way of smart decision-making; not often, but often enough.

And this is a case where these guys, despite all their wealth, and all their business acumen, aren’t thinking about the long-game.  They’re letting greed, and ego, get in the way, and massively inflating their downside, all in search of a limited upside.

Greed is good, right?

Not in this case.  Not a chance…

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